Transmitting method, receiving method, transmitting apparatus, and receiving apparatus

ABSTRACT

A transmitting method for transmitting contents using a broadcast wave and a communication path comprises: including content information in application control information when transmitting the contents using both the broadcast wave and the communication path, the content information being information for synchronizing a content transmitted by using the broadcast wave with a content transmitted by using the communication path at a reception side that receives the contents and being related to the content transmitted by using the communication path; and transmitting the application control information by using at least the broadcast wave in the broadcast wave and the communication path. As a result, a contents transmitting method is provided for enabling a quick access to contents through communication when the contents are reproduced by a combination of broadcast and communication on the receiving side.

BACKGROUND 1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to a transmitting method, a receivingmethod, a transmitting apparatus, and a receiving apparatus.

2. Description of the Related Art

Conventionally, a main transmission path for distributing contents is abroadcast wave. A media transport system that is widely used in abroadcast system using the broadcast wave includes, for example, MPEG-2TS (Moving Picture Experts Group-2 Transport Stream).

On the other hand, contents can be distributed by using a communicationpath such as an internet with recent advance of network technology. Thatis to say, the contents can be distributed by using not only a broadcastwave but also a communication path, and thus a transmission path thatenables distribution of contents becomes diversified.

For example, Non-Patent Literature 1 discloses MMT (MPEG MediaTransport) as a new media transport system which simulates distributionof contents using a combination of broadcast and communication (seeNon-Patent Literature 1). For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses atechnique mainly of broadcasting for accessing to communication contentsbased on data acquired from broadcast.

CITATION LIST Non-Patent Literature

-   Non-Patent Literature 1: Information technology—High efficiency    coding and media delivery in heterogeneous environments—Part1:MPEG    media transport(MMT), ISO/IEC FDIS 23008-1

SUMMARY

In one general aspect, the techniques disclosed here feature atransmitting method for transmitting contents using a broadcast wave anda communication path, the transmitting method comprising: includingcontent information in application control information when transmittingthe contents using both the broadcast wave and the communication path,the content information being information for synchronizing a contenttransmitted by using the broadcast wave with a content transmitted byusing the communication path at a reception side that receives thecontents and being related to the content transmitted by using thecommunication path; and transmitting the application control informationby using at least the broadcast wave in the broadcast wave and thecommunication path.

The generic or specific aspects may be realized by a data receivingmethod, an integrated circuit, a computer program, or a recording mediumsuch as a CD-ROM readable by a computer or may be realized by anycombination of the data receiving method, the integrated circuit, thecomputer program, and the recording medium.

The present disclosure can provide a contents transmitting method forenabling a quick access to contents through communication when thecontents are reproduced by using the combination of broadcast andcommunication on the receiving side.

Additional benefits and advantages of the disclosed embodiments willbecome apparent from the specification and drawings. The benefits and/oradvantages may be individually obtained by the various embodiments andfeatures of the specification and drawings, which need not all beprovided in order to obtain one or more of such benefits and/oradvantages.

It should be noted that general or specific embodiments may beimplemented as a system, a method, an integrated circuit, a computerprogram, a storage medium, or any selective combination thereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating one example of a data structure ofservice information in a broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to a first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 1B is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating one example of a summary of atransmission path identifying descriptor according to the firstexemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3A is a diagram illustrating another example of the data structureof the service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3B is a diagram illustrating another example of the data structureof the service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating one example of an operation on areceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 4B is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution ofa receiving apparatus according to the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 6A is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to a first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 6B is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to the first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 7A is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 7B is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution ofa receiving apparatus according to the first modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to a second modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution ofthe receiving apparatus according to the second modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 11A is a diagram illustrating one example of a data structure ofapplication control information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to a fourth modified example of the firstexemplary embodiment;

FIG. 11B is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe application control information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the fourth modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating another example of the data structureof the application control information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the fourth modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 13A is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the fourth modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIG. 13B is a flowchart illustrating a comparative example of theoperation on the receiving side in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the fourth modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to a first example of a second exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 15 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first example of the second exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 16A is a diagram illustrating one example of syntax of locationinformation descriptor according to a second example of the secondexemplary embodiment;

FIG. 16B is a diagram illustrating one example of the syntax of thelocation information descriptor according to the second example of thesecond exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 16C is a diagram illustrating one example of the syntax of thelocation information descriptor according to the second example of thesecond exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 16D is a diagram illustrating one example of the syntax of thelocation information descriptor according to the second example of thesecond exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to a third example of the second exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 18 is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the third example of the second exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 19 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to a fourth example of the second exemplary embodiment; and

FIG. 20 is a block diagram illustrating one example of the constitutionof the receiving apparatus according to the fourth example of the secondexemplary embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

(Underlying Knowledge Forming Basis of the Present Disclosure)

At present, a service that distributes contents using the combination ofbroadcast and communication (broadcast communication cooperativeservice) is examined. Particularly, a system that accesses to contentsacquired from the communication (hereinafter, communication contents)based on data acquired mainly from broadcast offers promise. In anoperation on a receiving side for receiving contents in the broadcastcommunication cooperative service at a viewing start time, similarly toa conventional service for distributing contents through only broadcast,after service information is acquired, start of receiving the contentsthrough coded data of an audio and a video or data carousel in an MPEG-2system is considered.

However, in service information that can be acquired by a conventionalservice, an operation for quickly accessing to communication contentsand an operation for selectively receiving only broadcast contents arenot considered. For this reason, when the broadcast communicationcooperative service is provided by using conventional serviceinformation, a process for analyzing the service information increasesor communication contents acquisition start timing is delayed.

Further, similarly in Hybridcast standards that are standardized in IPTVForum Japan and has been already employed by ARIB standards, theoperation for quickly accessing to communication contents and theoperation for selecting and receiving only broadcast contents are notconsidered.

In the conventional Hybridcast specifications that are standardized byIPTV Forum Japan and have been already employed by the ARIB standards,an application of HTML5 is downloaded on a communication side and theapplication is started according to issue of an event message. For thisreason, the Hybridcast does not cope with reproduction control ofcommunication contents based on PTS (Presentation Time Stamp) andDTS(Decoding Time Stamp) in frames of audio and video on the broadcastside, and thus cannot cope with high-definition synchronous reproductionsuch that a display time of the broadcast contents is made to besynchronous with a display time of the communication contents in eachframe.

In order to solve such a problem, a transmitting method according to oneaspect of the present disclosure for transmitting contents using anbroadcast wave and a communication path includes an informationtransmitting step of, when the contents are transmitted by using thebroadcast wave and the communication path, allowing application controlinformation to include information that is for synchronizing thecontents through the broadcast wave and the contents through thecommunication path when the contents are received by a receiving sideand that relates to the contents to be transmitted through thecommunication path, and transmitting the application control informationusing at least the broadcast wave in the broadcast wave and thecommunication path.

This aspect can realize a contents transmitting method that enables aquick access to contents through communication when the contents arereproduced by using the combination of broadcast and communication onthe receiving side. More specifically, when contents are transmitted byusing a broadcast wave and a communication path, information forsynchronizing the contents using the broadcast wave and using thecommunication path is transmitted with this information being includedin application control information. For this reason, when the receivingside receives the application control information including thisinformation, the receiving side is enabled to quickly access to thecontents using communication according to this information. As a result,the receiving side is enabled to make both the contents synchronize witheach other.

For example, in the information transmitting step, prior to thetransmission of the contents, the application control information istransmitted, and the application control information may further includelocation information indicating an acquisition destination of thecontents or information indicating an acquisition destination of thelocation information.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, theapplication control information may be allowed to include differentialinformation between a reference clock of the contents through thebroadcast wave and a reference clock of the contents through thecommunication path so as to be transmitted.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, theapplication control information is transmitted, and the reference clockof the contents through the communication path is made to synchronizewith the reference clock of the contents through the broadcast wavebased on the differential information so that the receiving side maytake the synchronization.

Further, in order to solve the above problem, a receiving method inaccordance with one aspect of the present disclosure includes areceiving step of receiving contents transmitted by using an broadcastwave and a communication path, and a reproducing step of, whenapplication control information that includes information which is forsynchronizing the contents using the broadcast wave and the contentsusing the communication path and which relates to the contents to betransmitted through the communication path is received from at least thebroadcast wave in the broadcast wave and the communication path,executing the synchronizing process so as to reproduce the contents.

For example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception of thecontents, the application control information is received, and when theapplication control information further includes location informationindicating an acquisition destination of the contents, the contents areacquired based on the location information so that the contents may bereceived.

Further, for example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception ofthe contents, the application control information is received, and whenthe application control information includes information indicating anacquisition destination of location information indicating anacquisition destination of the contents, the location information isacquired based on the information indicating the acquisition destinationof the location information, and the contents are acquired from theacquired location information so that the contents may be received.

Further, for example, in the reproducing step, when the applicationcontrol information that includes differential information between areference clock of the contents through the broadcast wave and areference clock of the contents through communication path is receivedin the receiving step, and the reference clock of the contents throughthe broadcast wave is different from the reference clock of the contentsthrough the communication path, the reference clock of the contentsthrough the communication path is made to synchronize with the referenceclock of the contents through the broadcast wave based on thedifferential information, so that a process for synchronizing thecontents with each other is executed and the contents may be reproduced.

Further, in order to solve the above problem, in accordance with oneaspect of the present disclosure, a transmitting apparatus thattransmits contents through a broadcast wave and a communication pathincludes an information transmitter that, when the contents aretransmitted by using the broadcast wave and the communication path,allows application control information to include information which isfor synchronizing the contents through the broadcast wave and throughthe communication path when a receiving side receives both the contentsand which relates to the contents transmitted through the communicationpath, and that transmits the application control information using atleast the broadcast wave in the broadcast wave and the communicationpath.

Further, in order to solve the above problem, in accordance with oneaspect of the present disclosure, a receiving apparatus includes areceiver that receives contents transmitted by using a broadcast waveand a communication path, and a reproducer that, when applicationcontrol information that is for synchronizing contents through abroadcast wave and through a communication path and that includesinformation about the contents to be transmitted through thecommunication path is received, executes the synchronizing process so asto reproduce the contents.

The generic or specific modes may be realized by the transmittingmethod, the transmitting apparatus, the receiving method, the receivingapparatus, an integrated circuit, a computer program, or a recordingmedium such as a CD-ROM readable by a computer or may be realized by anycombination of the data receiving method, the integrated circuit, thecomputer program, and the recording medium.

The transmitting method and the receiving method according to one aspectof the present disclosure are described specifically below withreference to the drawings.

All exemplary embodiments described below illustrate one specificexample of the present disclosure. Numerical values, shapes, materials,components, an arrangement position and connecting form of thecomponents, steps, and order of the steps are examples, and thus thepresent disclosure is not limited by them. Further, in componentsdescribed in the following exemplary embodiments, components that arenot described in independent claims representing a generic concept aredescribed as any component.

First Exemplary Embodiment

This exemplary embodiment describes a transmitting method fortransmitting and receiving contents in a broadcast communicationcooperative service.

[Transmitting Method]

In this exemplary embodiment, a transmitting side transmits contents(data or asset) using a broadcast wave and a communication path, butprior to the transmission of the contents, service information istransmitted.

[Service Information]

The service information indicates a series of information relating toreception of contents and acquisition of metadata such as informationfor acquiring an audio and a video or data relating to data broadcastafter a tuning operation (after tuning), or information about EPG(Electric Program Guide).

In present broadcast, the transmission is performed mainly by using asection of MPEG-2 TS (Transport Stream). Such an MPEG-2 TS includes PAT(Program Association Table), PMT (Program Map Table), NIT (NetworkInformation Table), CAT (Conditional Access Table), or EIT (EventInformation Table) defined in ARIB (Association of Radio Industries andBusinesses).

This exemplary embodiment exemplifies MMT (MPEG Media Transport) that isstandardized by MPEG as a multiplexing format on a broadcast side in abroadcast cooperative service. However, this multiplexing format is notlimited to MMT, and another multiplexing format such as TS or MPEG-DASH(Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) may be used.

The service information in this exemplary embodiment is transmitted in adata structure where storing can be performed in the multiplexingformat. For example, in MMT, the service information is transmitted in aformat of a table such as MPT (MMT Package Table) or of messageinformation such as PA (Package Access) message. In each of the tables,similarly to TS, auxiliary information can be described by using adescriptor.

FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B are diagrams illustrating one example of the datastructure of the service information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the first exemplary embodiment. Morespecifically, FIG. 1A illustrates MPT including a transmission pathidentifying descriptor, and FIG. 1B illustrates an example whereinformation about a transmission path of an asset forming a package, forexample, is described as attribute information in the transmission pathidentifying descriptor shown in FIG. 1A.

(Attribute Information)

1) The asset forming the package may include information indicatingwhether transmission is performed by using (1) only broadcast or (2) thecombination of the broadcast and communication as attribute information.

Editorial audio and video data may be information indicating whether thedata are transmitted by using (1) only broadcast or (2) the combinationof broadcast and communication. With this information, even when theeditorial data is transmitted by using only broadcast, metadata separatefrom the editorial data such as an audio, a video, a still image, and anHTML file can be acquired from a communication network.

2) When the audio and video data are transmitted by using thecombination of broadcast and communication, information indicatingcorrelation of data to be transmitted respectively may be included asthe attribute information.

For example, when scalability (temporal resolution (60 fps→120 fps),spatial resolution (4 k→8 k), and a bit depth (8 bit→10 bit)) arerealized, the attribute information enables the transmission throughbroadcast using a basic layer and the transmission through communicationusing an extended layer. The attribute information may indicate that aframe rate of only the broadcast data is 60 fps, but the combination ofthe broadcast data and the communication data can improve the frame rateto 120 fps. Further, the attribute information may indicate that datafor broadcast backup is transmitted through communication. As a result,when a broadcast receiving condition is deteriorated by rainattenuation, the transmitting side can switch the transmission of datainto transmission of data through the communication using the attributeinformation.

Further, the attribute information may indicate information foridentifying assets that are related to each other. For example, theattribute information may indicate an asset ID of a basic layer and anasset ID of an extended layer corresponding to the basic layer.

In MMT, the same assets can be transmitted by using a plurality oftransmission paths. Therefore, the attribute information may indicatewhether the same assets are transmitted by using the combination ofbroadcast and communication. At this time, the asset identifyinginformation (the asset IDs) may be additionally indicated. Theinformation for identifying the related assets may be indicated by, forexample, as shown in FIG. 2, individual transmission path identifyingdescriptors for the respective assets. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustratingone example of a summary of the transmission path identifying descriptoraccording to the first exemplary embodiment. The individual transmissionpath identifying descriptors shown in FIG. 2 may indicate, for example,information for identifying the asset as an asset of the basic layer oridentifying an asset of the extended layer, or an asset ID of thecorresponding basic layer when the asset is of the extended layer.

Further, the attribute information indicates a list of the assetsincluded in a group where broadcast assets and communication assets aregrouped. When assets using the combination of broadcast andcommunication are present, they may be additionally grouped.

3) The attribute information may include information indicating whetheran audio and a video to be transmitted through broadcast aresynchronized with an audio and a video to be transmitted throughcommunication and they are reproduced.

Each attribute information may be indicated as each field, orinformation indicating each service type is defined so that eachattribute information can be identified according to each type. Further,the attribute information may be described in a format different fromthe descriptor.

Further, the transmission path identifying descriptor may be stored in atable or a message indicating information per package different fromMPT. Further, contents of the transmission path identifying descriptormay be described as a data structure different from the descriptor.

Further, when a plurality of packages is transmitted, a table and amessage representing a list of the packages are defined, and informationabout each package such as the transmission path identifying descriptormay be indicated as the attribute information about each package.

FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B are diagrams illustrating another examples of thedata structure of the service information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the first exemplary embodiment.

That is to say, as shown in FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B, location informationabout the assets to be transmitted through broadcast and communicationmay be stored in different MPTs. At this time, the attribute informationabout the package can be stored in MPT to be sent through a transmissionpath to be an entry point of the service. For example, when broadcast isthe entry point, the attribute information is stored in MPT to be sentthrough broadcast. Further, these MPTs are identified by “table_id”.

In the MMT standards, since a value of “table_id” of MPT to be areference is defined as zero, “table_id” of MPT corresponding to thetransmission path to be the entry point can be set to zero, and“table_id” of MPT corresponding to the other transmission path can beset to 1 or more.

MPT of the broadcast asset may be transmitted through broadcast and MPTof the communication asset may be transmitted through communication.

Further, the location information about the broadcast assets and thelocation information about the communication assets may be stored in oneMPT. In this case, each location information of each asset may be storedsequentially so as to be easily identified. For example, when N1broadcast assets and N2 communication assets are present, informationabout the N1 broadcast assets is sequentially described, and theninformation about the N2 communication assets is sequentially described.The transmission path identifying descriptor may indicate that, N1assets are transmitted through broadcast and N2 assets are transmittedthrough communication.

On the transmitting side, the transmission path identifying descriptorthat is auxiliary information is made to be included in serviceinformation so as to be transmitted. As a result, on the receiving side,only when the service information including the auxiliary information isacquired, the attribute information about the package described in thetransmission path identifying descriptor enables advanced acquisition ofwhether communication data is included or not, or a dependencerelationship between broadcast data and communication data can beacquired without analyzing the information about each asset.

Particularly when communication data is received, a delay time relatingto starting of the receiving process can be shortened.

[Receiving Apparatus]

For example, the transmitting apparatus in this exemplary embodiment iscapable of transmitting contents using a broadcast wave and acommunication path. The transmitting apparatus generates the attributeinformation of the package such as transmission path identifyingdescriptor as the auxiliary information and allows the attributeinformation to be included in service information so as to transmit theservice information.

The transmitting apparatus of this exemplary embodiment may periodicallytransmit the service information. When contents of the serviceinformation are updated, the updated contents are reflected in theservice information just after the update.

Further, the entry point is not limited to broadcast and may becommunication or entry may be enabled from both broadcast andcommunication. When the entry is enabled from both broadcast andcommunication, the information about each package is transmitted from atleast both transmission apparatuses on broadcast and communication.

When the contents of the broadcast communication cooperative service arereceived on the receiving side, data transmitted from both thetransmission paths does not always have to be received. For example,only broadcast data may be received so to be reproduced. At this time,since information that is necessary when the receiving side receivescommunication data is not necessary when broadcast data is received, thetransmitting side may transmit the information necessary for thereception of the communication data in communication. That is to say,the transmitting side may transmit the information about each package onthe transmission path to be the entry point, and may transmitinformation specific to the transmission paths of broadcast andcommunication on the respective transmission paths (for example, FIG.2). In the following description, broadcast is the entry point.

As a result, the service information specific to each transmission pathcan be generated so as to be transmitted by the transmitting apparatuson each of the transmission paths. Information such as the locationinformation about assets to be transmitted as MPT is collectivelyacquired at first, so that the delay time relating to the start of assetacquisition on the communication side can be reduced and thus theinformation may be transmitted through broadcast.

(Example of Information Specific to Communication)

An example of information specific to communication (communicationnetworks such as internet and CDN (Contents Delivery Network) isdescribed.

1) Information relating to FEC (Forward Error Correction) in a packet tobe transmitted through communication, such as an FEC system andparameters

2) Information relating to QoS (Quality of Service) control such as apacket loss rate, a jitter of a packet arrival time, RTT (Round TripTime), or an end-to-end delay on a communication transmission path

3) Information relating to buffering between reception of asset datasuch as a buffering time and a buffering amount and start of decoding.

Also in broadcast, particularly broadcast for a mobile body (1-segmentbroadcast in Japan), FEC and QoS are important, but parameters in themare different from parameters on the communication path. For thisreason, the information specific to broadcast may be transmitted only inbroadcast.

On the other hand, in communication, a plurality of audio and videodata, such as a bit frame and a frame rate, can be selected according toa band frequency of a communication network. At this time, informationindicating correspondence between attribute information (bit rate or thelike) and asset IDs of selectable data may be transmitted. The relationinformation may be transmitted also in broadcast.

Information indicating whether a plurality of selectable assets ispresent may be indicated as the correspondence information, or when theplurality of selectable assets is present, a list about the plurality ofselectable assets may be indicated.

[Receiving Method]

In this exemplary embodiment, the receiving side starts to receive(acquire) contents after acquisition of service information. Thereceiving method in this exemplary embodiment is described below withreference to the drawings.

FIG. 4A is a flowchart illustrating one example of an operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first exemplary embodiment. FIG. 4A illustrates anoperation of the receiving apparatus for acquiring the transmission pathidentifying descriptor in this exemplary embodiment and deciding assetsto be received.

An MPT table included in a PA message or an MPT message is acquired asservice information to be transmitted on the transmission path to be theentry point, and a transmission path identifying descriptor included inthe table is acquired.

Information about the transmission path identifying descriptor, such aswhether assets are transmitted by using the combination of broadcast andcommunication and a dependence relationship between the broadcast assetsand the communication assets when both the transmission paths are used,is interpreted (step S101).

A message such as the PA message is stored in a payload of a packet suchas an MMT packet, and a type of data to be stored is represented by apacket header. Therefore, when an MMT package is received, the MMTpacket in the PA message is acquired first with reference to an IDnumber in the packet header (corresponding to “packet_id” in the MMTpacket).

An asset to be received is decided based on a reproducing ability of aterminal or whether the communication path can be used (step S102).

An example of an asset deciding method is described.

1) When the receiving apparatus is not connected to a communicationnetwork, a decision is made that only a broadcast asset is received. Atthis time, an asset to be transmitted by using the combination ofbroadcast and communication is not received.

2) When a basic layer of a video is transmitted through broadcast and anextended layer of the video is transmitted through communication, adecision is made that when only the basic layer can be reproduced, onlythe broadcast data is received, and when both the layer can bereproduced, both broadcast data and communication data are received. Forexample, time scalability of 60 fps can be realized only in the basiclayer and time scalability of 120 fps can be realized in the basic layerand the extended layer. In this case, when the receiving apparatus canperform decoding and display at only up to 60 fps, only broadcast datais received, and when the receiving apparatus can perform decoding anddisplay at up to 120 fps, both broadcast data and communication data arereceived.

3) Receivable assets are decided selectively from a plurality of assetswith different bit rates to be transmitted through communicationaccording to the band frequency of the communication network to beconnected by the receiving apparatus.

Information about the bit rates of the respective assets is transmittedseparately as service information. A decision may be made that when areception state is not satisfactory due to congestion of thecommunication network and assets that can be stably received are notpresent, data on the communication side is not received.

4) Further, in preparation for environment deterioration of broadcastreception, when data for backup is transmitted in communication, anasset to be acquired may be decided when the reception environment isdeteriorated. In this case, the receiving apparatus monitors thereception environment, and a decision is made based on an index such asan error rate in the reception data whether the communication asset isreceived, so that a receiving process may be executed.

5) When data to be reproduced synchronously with audio data and videodata of editorial data to be transmitted through broadcast (data aboutan extended layer in a video) is received through communication, aspecial operation for buffering data before start of the reproduction isoccasionally required for ensuring the synchronization between the datareceived through broadcast and the data received through communication.In this case, only an asset, which does not need definitesynchronization with the data to be transmitted through broadcast (forexample, synchronization in unit of frame), may be received throughcommunication. For example, a decision may be made that an assetincluding data of HTML, a still image and a moving image that does notneed definite synchronization may be acquired through communication.

The description is give below with reference to a flowchart in FIG. 4A.

A decision (determination) is made in step S103 whether an asset to betransmitted through communication is received, and when the decision(determination) is made that the asset is received (Yes in S103), thesequence goes to S104, and when the decision (determination) is madethat the asset is not received (No in S103), the process goes to S105.

The asset is received from both the transmission paths of broadcast andcommunication in S104, and the asset is received only through broadcastin S105.

FIG. 4B is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first exemplary embodiment.

In comparison between FIG. 4B and FIG. 4A, a step of, when serviceinformation specific to communication is transmitted throughcommunication, receiving the service information (step S106) is added inFIG. 4B. Since the other parts are similar to those described in FIG.4A, description thereof is omitted.

When service information specific to broadcast is present, it isadditionally received in a step, not illustrated.

Further, when the receiving apparatus does not cope with the broadcastcommunication cooperative service, only broadcast asset may be received.In this case, when an asset to be transmitted by using the combinationof broadcast and communication is present, the asset is not received.

[Receiving Apparatus]

FIG. 5 a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution of thereceiving apparatus according to the first exemplary embodiment. FIG. 5illustrates one example of the constitution of the receiving apparatusrealizing the receiving method described with reference to FIG. 4A.

Receiving apparatus 100 illustrated in FIG. 5 includes identificationinformation acquiring unit 101, asset decider 102, determiner 103,broadcast receiver 104, and communication receiver 105.

The identification information acquiring unit 101 has a function thatrealizes step

S101 illustrated in FIG. 4A. Specifically, identification informationacquiring unit 101 acquires service information to be transmitted on atransmission path to be the entry point, and acquires a transmissionpath identifying descriptor (auxiliary information) included in theservice information. Identification information acquiring unit 11interprets information about the transmission path identifyingdescriptor.

Asset decider 102 has a function that realizes step S102 illustrated inFIG. 4A, and decides an asset to be received based on a reproducingability of a terminal or whether the communication path can be used.

Determiner 103 has a function that realizes step S103 illustrated inFIG. 4A, and decides (determines) whether the asset to be transmittedthrough communication is received. Specifically, determiner 103determines whether the communication data is received, and whendeterminer 103 determines that it is received, broadcast receiver 104and communication receiver 105 receive data of the asset decided in step102.

When determiner 103 determines that the communication data is notreceived, only broadcast receiver 14 receives the data.

First Modified Example

This modified example describes an example where broadcast transmissionis performed by using TS, and communication transmission is performed byusing DASH or RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol).

FIG. 6A and FIG. 6B are diagrams illustrating one example of the datastructure of the service information in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the first modified example of the firstexemplary embodiment. FIG. 6A illustrates an example where informationabout data to be transmitted through communication is stored in PMT.FIG. 6B illustrates one example of the data structure of thetransmission path identifying descriptor according to this modifiedexample.

In this modified example, the transmission path identifying descriptorindicating the attribute information described with reference to FIG. 1Aand FIG. 1B is stored in PMT as one example of the service information.

The program information in TS such as PMT indicates only locationinformation of data to be transmitted through TS. For this reason, inthis modified example, when contents data is transmitted by thecombination of communication and broadcast, the location informationabout the communication data is stored in the transmission pathidentifying descriptor. More specifically, the attribute informationincludes flag information indicating whether communication is also used.As a result, the transmitting side can make selection whether thelocation information about the communication data is included accordingto a value of the flag information. The location information is notlimited to the storage in the transmission path identifying descriptor.A descriptor may be additionally defined so that the locationinformation is stored.

(Location Information)

The location information is information indicating a data acquisitiondestination, and corresponds to PID in a case of TS, and corresponds toURL or URI in a case of communication.

As the location information, MPD (Media Presentation Description) ofDASH or SDP (Session Description Protocol) in RTP may be stored.

Further, the location information is not limited to storage of entitydata of the location information such as MPD and SDP, and informationindicating an acquisition destination of the entity data in the locationinformation may be stored in location information. The informationindicating the acquisition destination of the entity data in thelocation information is, for example, information indicating URL foracquiring MPD. When the information indicating the acquisitiondestination of the entity data of the location information is stored inthe location information, a delay occurs due to the additionalacquisition of the entity data of the location information. For thisreason, from a viewpoint of reducing a delay until the start of thereception of the communication data, it is desirable that the entitydata is stored directly in the location information.

Since MPD of DASH includes various information relating to theacquisition destination of the contents, a size of MPD is large.Therefore, MPD is not stored directly in the location information, andsubset information including only information relating to URL of thecontents acquisition destination and relating to DTS and PTS of asegment may be stored in the location information.

Further, it is desirable that the contents of the location informationsuch as MPD can be updated.

For example, a version number may be given to the location information.As a result, when the version number is updated, the locationinformation can be reacquired. Information about the transmission pathidentifying descriptor in PMT to be periodically transmitted may besuccessively checked in order to check whether the version number isupdated. However, since the successive checking process is heavy,section data for storage of the location information may be additionallygenerated (referred to as transmission path identifying section) so asto be periodically transmitted.

In the receiving apparatus, the version number in the transmission pathidentifying section is checked so that a determination can be madewhether the location information is updated. In both program informationsuch as PMT and the transmission path identifying section, the attributeinformation and the location information may be transmitted.Alternatively, only the location information may be stored in thetransmission path identifying section.

Further, after acquisition of communication data is started based on thelocation information acquired through broadcast, updated contents of thelocation information may be acquired through communication. At thistime, since the acquisition destination of the location information isrequired, the acquisition destination of the location information aswell as the entity data of the location information may be stored in thetransmission path identifying descriptor of broadcast.

The receiving apparatus periodically accesses to the acquisitiondestination of the location information so as to be capable of acquiringthe updated contents through communication.

Further, when a system of a message exchange between a distributingserver of DASH contents and the receiving apparatus is present, theserver may issue a message indicating the updating of the locationinformation to the receiving apparatus. When the receiving apparatusreceives the message, the location information may be reacquired.

The description refers to that the information about the data to betransmitted through communication is store in PMT, but the presentdisclosure is not limited to this. The attribute information and thelocation information may be transmitted through a section different fromPMT.

Further, the method for acquiring the communication data may be switchedbased on whether the data to be transmitted through communication isreproduced synchronously with an audio and a video on broadcast.

For example, when the synchronous reproduction is performed, thecommunication data is enabled to be accessed from the broadcast programinformation as described above. When the synchronous reproduction is notperformed, AIT (Application Information Table) defined for a hybrid castspecification in ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses)is used so that information for an access to the communication data maybe transmitted by data broadcast. The receiving apparatus receives AITin a format of a table or a carousel, and acquires communication databased on contents of AIT. The acquired communication data is started tobe reproduced after the reception of an event message to be transmittedthrough data broadcast.

Also when the broadcast data and the communication data aresynchronously reproduced, information such as AIT may be used. At thistime, reproduction start and end times of the communication data areindicated in the data broadcast. In the receiving apparatus, thecommunication data is reproduced according to these times.

MPD of DASH, and SDP of RTP can indicate a reproduction start time or adecoding start time of contents, and these times are specified based onreference clocks defined for respective multiplexing and transmittingsystems such as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Further, also PTS(Presentation Time Stamp) and DTS (Decoding Time Stamp) of individualvideo frames and audio samples are set based on the reference clocks. Onthe other hand, since PCR (Program Clock Reference) is a reference clockin broadcast, when the broadcast data and the communication data aresynchronously reproduced, information indicating a correlation betweenboth reference clocks is required.

Therefore, information indicating the correlation between the referenceclocks of the broadcast data and the communication data may be includedin program information of PMT in broadcast. For example, the informationmay be such that a time at which a value of PCR in broadcast is N1 and atime at which a value of UTC in communication is N2 may be matched witheach other. These pieces of information may be included in MPD and SDP.

Further, the transmission path identifying descriptor may indicateinformation about a protocol of a transport layer such as whether thecommunication data is transmitted according to UDP (User DatagramProtocol) or TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). As a result, in thereceiving apparatus, a determination can be made whether a port to beused in each protocol is opened or whether the port copes with theprotocol to be used.

Further, a discrimination may be made whether the multiplexing format inthe communication data is DASH or RTP by presenting identificationinformation of the multiplexing format in the communication data.

[Receiving Method]

As the receiving method in this modified example, the followingdescribes one example of the operation of the receiving apparatus in acase where the transmission is performed in broadcast by using TS andthe transmission is performed in communication by using DASH or RTP(Real-time Transport Protocol) with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 7A is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment. FIG. 7A illustrates one example of the operation of thereceiving apparatus when the attribute information and the locationinformation are stored in the broadcast program information.

The operation in steps (step S201 to step S205) is similar to theoperation of the flowchart in FIG. 4A, but in FIG. 4A, the broadcastdata and the communication data are made to be uniform by an asset of anMMT package. On the contrary, in FIG. 7A, data of TS is transmitted onthe broadcast, and data of DASH or RTP is transmitted on thecommunication side. Since the parts other than the above point are asdescribed with reference to FIG. 4A, detailed description thereof isomitted.

FIG. 7B is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment. FIG. 7B illustrates one example of the operation when accessinformation for acquiring the attribute information and the locationinformation is stored in the broadcast program information and entity ofthe location information is not stored therein.

Since step S301 is similar to step S201, description thereof is omitted.

A decision (determination) is made in step S302 whether communicationdata is received. When the communication data is received in step S303,the sequence goes to S304, and when the communication data is notreceived, the sequence goes to S306.

The location information is acquired according to the acquisitiondestination of the location information of the communication dataincluded in the broadcast program information in step S304.

On the other hand, in step S305, the communication data is acquiredbased on the location information acquired in S304, and the broadcastdata is acquired. Further, only data to be transmitted through broadcastis acquired in S306.

(Attribute Information)

The attribute information is similar to the contents described in thefirst exemplary embodiment, but since the first exemplary embodimentdescribes MMT as an example, the following describes an example where TSis used in broadcast and DASH or RTP is used in communication.

1) Information, which indicates whether audio data and video dataforming contents are transmitted by (1) a method using only broadcast or(2) a method using the combination of broadcast and communication, maybe included as the attribute information.

Audio and video data may be the information indicating whether the dataare transmitted by (1) the method using only broadcast or (2) the methodusing the combination of broadcast and communication. Even wheneditorial data is transmitted by only broadcast, this method enables anaudio, a video, a still image or metadata such as an HTML file to beacquired from a communication network different from the communicationnetwork used for the editorial data.

2) When the audio data and video data are transmitted by using thecombination of broadcast and communication, information representing acorrelation of data to be transmitted respectively may be included asthe attribute information.

For example, when scalability (temporal resolution (60 fps→120 fps),spatial resolution (4 k→8 k), and a bit depth (8 bit→10 bit)) arerealized, the attribute information can indicate that a basic layer isused for the transmission through broadcast and an extended layer isused for the transmission through the communication. As a use case, theattribute information may indicate that a frame rate of only thebroadcast data is 60 fps, but the combination of the broadcast data andthe communication data can improve the frame rate to 120 fps. Further,the attribute information may indicate that data for broadcast backup istransmitted through communication. As a result, when a broadcastreceiving condition is deteriorated due to rain attenuation, thetransmitting side can switch the transmission of data into transmissionof data through communication using the attribute information.

Further, the attribute information may indicate information foridentifying encoded streams related to reach other. For example, theattribute information can indicate video data identification informationsuch as PID of a TS packet for storing data of a basic layer to betransmitted through broadcast, a segment in DASH data to be transmittedthrough communication, or a track ID in MP4.

Further, the attribute information may indicate information indicatingbroadcast data and communication data to be reproduced synchronouslywith each other. As a result, the transmitting side can transmit videosfrom a plurality of view angles or videos of a master image and a slaveimage in a picture-in-picture through broadcast and communication.

3) Information that indicates whether the audio and the videotransmitted through broadcast and the audio and the video transmittedthrough communication are synchronously reproduced may be included asthe attribute information.

4) Information that indicates whether clock information of the audio andthe video transmitted through broadcast is identical to clockinformation of the audio and the video transmitted through communicationmay be included as the attribute information.

5) Information that indicates whether communication data is livecontents may be included as the attribute information.

For example, when contents to be broadcasted are not live contents, dataafter a current time (T1) can be acquired. Therefore, when the receptionis started from data whose reproduction time is a time (T2) acquired byadding a total sum (AT) of a time during contents acquisition requestthrough start of reception (or its estimated value) and a data bufferingtime to the current time, the broadcast data can be reproduced without adelay. At this time, the reproduction of the communication data isstarted at time T2. On the other hand, when contents to be transmittedis live contents, the broadcast data is buffered only by AT, so that thereproduction of both the broadcast data and the communication data maybe started at time T2.

When the transmitting side multi-casts or broadcasts contents using RTP,data after the current time cannot be acquired regardless of whether thecontents are live contents or not. Therefore, information indicatingwhether the communication data is for multi-cast or broadcast may bealso included in the attribute information.

[Receiving Apparatus]

The following describes one example of a constitution of the receivingapparatus when the transmission through broadcast is performed by usingTS, and the transmission through communication is performed by usingDASH or RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol).

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution ofthe receiving apparatus according to the first modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment. FIG. 8 illustrates one example of theconstitution of the receiving apparatus realizing the receiving methoddescribed with reference to FIG. 7B.

Receiving apparatus 300 illustrated in FIG. 8 includes identificationinformation acquiring unit 301, decider 302, communication-combineddeterminer 303, Loc information acquiring unit 304, broadcast receiver305, and communication receiver 306. The constitution of the receivingapparatus that realizes the receiving method realizing FIG. 7Acorresponds to a case where Loc information acquiring unit 304 is notpresent in FIG. 8.

Identification information acquiring unit 301 has a function thatrealizes step S301 illustrated in FIG. 7B. Specifically, identificationinformation acquiring unit 301 acquires service information to betransmitted on the transmission path to be the entry point, and acquiresa transmission path identifying descriptor (auxiliary information)included in the service information. Identification informationacquiring unit 301 interprets information of the transmission pathidentifying descriptor.

Decider 302 has a function that realizes step S302 illustrated in FIG.7B, and decides data to be received based on a reproducing ability of aterminal or whether the communication path can be used.

Communication-combined determiner 303 has a function that realizes stepS103 illustrated in FIG. 7B, and decides (determines) whether the datato be transmitted through communication is received.

Loc information acquiring unit 304 has a function that realizes stepS304 illustrated in FIG. 7B, and acquires location data of thecommunication data.

Second Modified Example

This modified example describes one example of the receiving method whenthe attribute information and the location information are stored inbroadcast program information and are transmitted.

[Receiving Method]

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the second modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment. FIG. 9 illustrates an operation example such that when theattribute information and the location information are stored in thebroadcast program information and are transmitted, the receivingapparatus determines whether broadcast contents and communicationcontents are synchronously reproduced, and both the contents arereproduced.

The operation in FIG. 9 is based on the operation in FIG. 7A, but is anexample when transmission data is made to be an asset of MMT but to bemore general contents.

Program information to be transmitted through the transmission path tobe the entry point is acquired, and a transmission path identifyingdescriptor included in the program information is acquired, and theattribute information of contents and the location information ofcommunication contents are acquired (step S401).

When an entity of the location information is not stored in the programinformation, entity data of the location information is acquired by amethod similar to the method described with reference to FIG. 7B.

Data to be received is decided based on a reproducing ability of thereceiving apparatus or whether the communication path can be used (stepS402).

A decision is made whether the communication contents are acquired (stepS403), and when the decision is made that the communication contents areacquired (Yes in S403), the process goes to step S404, and the data isreceived from both the broadcast and communication transmission paths.When the decision (determination) is made that the communicationcontents are not acquired (No in S403), the sequence goes to step S409,and the data is received only through broadcast so that only thebroadcast contents are reproduced in step S410.

A determination is, then, made whether the broadcast contents and thecommunication contents are synchronously reproduced (step S405).

When the determination is made that both the contents are synchronouslyreproduced (Yes in S405), a reference clock of broadcast contents isallowed to synchronize with a reference clock of the communicationcontents in step S406 so that both the contents are synchronouslyreproduced in step S407.

The synchronization of the reference clocks in S406 may be performedprior to S404. This is because when reception data of contents isbuffered and started to be reproduced, after a check is made that datawhose PTS is T1 in the broadcast contents and data whose PTS is T1 inthe communication contents (their PTSs are made to be synchronized witheach other) are already received, these data are decoded and thereproduction of the data is started in some cases, and when adetermination is made whether the data to be synchronously reproducedare present, it is necessary that the reference clocks of both of themalready synchronize with each other.

Further, in the synchronization between the reference clocks in S406,the reference clock used in broadcast can be matched with the referenceclock used in communication and vice versa. For example, when PCR(Program Clock Reference) is used in broadcast and NTP (Network TimeProtocol) is used in communication, DTS and PTS in a video and an audioon an NTP basis are converted into DTS and PTS on a PCR basis, so thatthe reference clocks in broadcast and communication can be synchronizedwith each other. Further, DTS and PTS of broadcast and communication maybe converted in order to take synchronization of specific clocks to beused in the receiving apparatus.

The operation when the attribute information and the locationinformation are stored in the broadcast program information so as to betransmitted is described with reference to FIG. 9. However, when thesynchronous reproduction is not necessary, the transmission pathidentifying descriptor in which these pieces of information aredescribed does not have to be stored in the broadcast programinformation.

Further, in the synchronization between the reference clocks, thereference clock used in broadcast can be matched with the referenceclock used in communication and vice versa. For example, when PCR(Program Clock Reference) is used in broadcast and NTP (Network TimeProtocol) is used in communication, DTS and PTS in a video and an audioon the NTP basis are converted into DTS and PTS on the PCR basis, sothat the reference clocks in broadcast and communication can besynchronized with each other. DTS and PTS of broadcast and communicationmay be converted in order to take synchronization of specific clocks tobe used in the receiving apparatus.

[Receiving Apparatus]

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a constitution ofthe receiving apparatus according to the second modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment. FIG. 10 illustrates one example of theconstitution of the receiving apparatus realizing the receiving methoddescribed with reference to FIG. 9.

Receiving apparatus 400 illustrated in FIG. 10 includes identificationinformation acquiring unit 401, decider 402, communication-combineddeterminer 403, Loc information acquiring unit 404, broadcast receiver405, communication receiver 406, synchronization determiner 407, andreproducer 408.

Since identification information acquiring unit 401 to communicationreceiver 406 are similar to identification information acquiring unit301 to communication receiver 306 described with reference to FIG. 8,description thereof is omitted.

Synchronization determiner 407 has a function for executing a process instep S405 illustrated in FIG. 9.

Reproducer 408 decodes and reproduces broadcast contents orcommunication contents based on a reproducing method decided bydetermined results of communication-combined determiner 403 andsynchronization determiner 407.

Third Modified Example

Another examples different from the above-described examples aredescribed below.

Another Example 1

The transmission paths are not limited to the combination of broadcastand communication, and thus a combination of the same kind oftransmission paths for broadcast and broadcast or communication andcommunication may be used.

Further, when information for each package such as the transmission pathidentifying descriptor is not indicated, the location information foreach asset illustrated in FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B is interpreted so that thedecision may be made whether each asset is transmitted through broadcastor communication or whether an asset to be transmitted throughcommunication is present in a package.

(Location Information)

The location information may include URL information about an assetacquisition destination. When the acquisition destination is URL, adecision can be made whether the asset is transmitted through broadcastor communication based on whether the URL is specific URL defined inadvance in broadcast service.

For example, when a broadcast asset is transmitted in the same stream asmessage information of MPT, the location information indicates ID of apacket for storing asset data therein (“packet_id” in case of an MMTpacket) as the acquisition destination of the broadcast asset, andindicates URL as the acquisition destination of an asset to betransmitted through communication. Therefore, the decision may be madewhether the asset is transmitted through communication according towhether the acquisition destination is URL in the location information.

(Modified Example of Description of MPT)

With reference to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, the case where the locationinformation for each asset and the individual transmission pathidentifying descriptors are defined as the information for each asset isdescribed, but the present disclosure is not limited to this. A fieldindicating an asset encoding system may be additionally provided. Theencoding system is information essential at a time of decoding, and itis desirable that the encoding system is signaled in information such asMPT that can be acquired prior to decoding. For example, informationsuch as “stream_type” in the MPEG-2 system can be used.

Further, in the encoding system that enables scalable encoding,information about whether the asset is in a basic layer or an extendedlayer may be indicated together with the encoding system.

Further, a plurality of assets having scalability is included in such acase where two videos having time scalability are present in one MMTpackage. At this time, information indicating correspondence between theasset of the extended layer and the asset of the basic layer may beindicated. For example, for the asset of the extended layer, theinformation may indicate an asset ID of the corresponding basic layer.Further, the asset of the extended layers and the asset of the basiclayers may be grouped so that a group ID is allocated to the respectiveassets.

These pieces of information can be indicated in the broadcast programinformation even when TS is used in broadcast and DASH or RTP is used incommunication. For example, a dependence relationship between a videostream to be transmitted through broadcast and a video stream to betransmitted through communication (the video stream on the communicationside corresponds to the extended layer), or information indicating theencoding system of a video and an audio on the communication side can bedescribed by the PMT descriptor. Further, the information may indicatewhether the stream on the broadcast side and the stream on thecommunication side are synchronously reproduced.

(Information about Transmission Path)

Information indicating whether contents data is transmitted only throughbroadcast or through the combination of broadcast and communication maybe stored in program information such as EPG.

For example, when viewing is selected or recording is reserved from EPG,and data to be transmitted through communication cannot be reproducednor recorded like a case where a communication network is not connectedor the receiving apparatus does not cope with the data acquisitionthrough communication, message information indicating that state may bedisplayed.

Further, information indicating whether data to be transmitted throughcommunication can be acquired prior to a program start time.Particularly in a download type system such as DASH, data on thecommunication side is downloaded prior to the start of the program sothat the reproduction of the broadcast data and the communication datacan be started at the program start time.

For example, when the communication data can be acquired prior to theprogram start time, the receiving apparatus may start the reception ofthe communication data before the program start time. At this time, thereception start time is decided so that data for predetermined bufferingdata amount or buffering time can be received at the program start time.

Further, for example, a similar operation may be performed also inprogram timer recording.

In broadcast, when a user can select a plurality of programs at anytiming, receives communication data of a program next tocurrently-viewing channel, and the viewing program is changed, thereception of the communication data in advance does not providebenefits. Therefore, as to all programs which can be viewed at anyviewing time after the viewing time and whose data are transmittedthrough the combination of broadcast and communication, thecommunication data may be buffered in advance. When not all program datacannot be received, programs may be selected and received within areceivable range.

Further, also information indicating whether the broadcast data and thecommunication data are synchronously reproduced is included in theprogram information such as EPG, and when these data are synchronouslyreproduced, the communication data may be buffered in advance. Whenthese data are not synchronously reproduced, the communication data maybe started to be received after the reception of the broadcast data isstarted.

Even when such information is not included in EPG, MPT in MMT or PMT ata time of using TS for broadcast is analyzed, and similar information isacquired so that a similar message can be displayed.

Further, such information may be stored in control information at a timeof demodulating a signal, such as a TMCC signal in the broadcast systemin Japan, to be transmitted through the transmission path.

As a result, a determination can be made at the demodulation timewhether the reception through communication is necessary, and actuationon the communication side can be accelerated.

(Format)

A file format on the HTTP base is not limited to DASH, and thus HTTPLive Streaming (HLS) or Microsoft Smooth Streaming (MSS) may be used.Also in these systems, since contents management informationcorresponding to MPD is present, the relationship between the broadcastdata and the communication data can be indicated by a system similar toDASH.

Further, also on the communication side, the TS stream may be used or aformat in which a field showing a 4-byte time stamp is added to a headof the TS packet may be used. TS with a time stamp is used in a lot ofstandards such as BD (Blu-ray (registered trademark) Disc) or an IPTVforum.

Another Example 2

(Attribute Information and Location Information)

An attribute of entire contents and individual attributes of streamssuch as audios and videos may be stored separately in the attributeinformation and the location information.

For example, when DASH is used on the communication side, broadcastcontents and communication contents are synchronously reproduced, or theattribute information of the entire contents indicating that thebroadcast contents are on the basic layer of scalability and thecommunication contents are on the extended layer may be stored in thetransmission path identifying descriptor. On the other hand, informationfor identifying a video and an audio to be synchronously reproduced,such as individual attributes for respective streams, may be stored inMPD.

When a video on broadcast is associated with an audio of a SAP (SecondAudio Program) to be transmitted through communication as an attributeexample for each stream, PID of the TS packet for storing the video maybe associated with audio identification information for identifying,within the DASH data, a track, a segment, Adaptation Set, orRepresentation of the audio, such as an audio track ID. Theidentification information about broadcast media may include PID, ID ofa transport stream including a TS packet of this PID and service ID.

Contents of MPD are occasionally updated, and updating information ismanaged by a distribution server of DASH contents. For this reason,particularly, there are obtained an advantage such that individualattributes of streams are described in MPD and thus information exchangebetween a broadcast contents transmitting apparatus and a communicationcontents transmitting server can be reduced, and an advantage such thatan entire attribute is stored in information such as PMT acquired at thebroadcast reception start time and thus a communication contentsreception start process can be quickly activated.

Further, both the entire attribute and the individual attributes may bedescribed by any one of a descriptor such as PMT in broadcast and MPD orboth of them. For example, in broadcast, the information may bedescribed by a descriptor of application control information such asAIT.

(Attribute Information)

Further, a method for synchronizing clock information of streams to betransmitted through different transmission paths of broadcast andcommunication may be included in the attribute information. In thiscase, the receiving apparatus may perform clock synchronization based onthis information.

For example, information for identifying the following three methods maybe described as the attribute information.

Method 1) Streams to synchronize with each other are based on a commonclock, and thus synchronization between their clocks is not necessary.

Method 2) Like the descriptor in PMT, the synchronization is performedbased on information for clock synchronization to be transmittedseparately from the streams.

Method 3) Like a timeline extension of TS that is being standardized inMPEG (13818-1:2013/AMD6 (2nd WD)), the synchronization is performed withreference to independent streams including information for clocksynchronization.

In the method 3, PID of the TS packet for storing the streams for clocksynchronization may be included in the attribute information.

Fourth Modified Example

As a new service where broadcast and communication are combined,Hybridcast standards that are standardized in the IPTV forum and arealready adopted in ARIB standards is present.

In the conventional Hybridcast specification that is standardized in theIPTV forum and is already adopted in the ARIB standards, cooperationbetween a broadcast service and a communication service is allowed tofunction based on application control information (AIT: ApplicationInformation Table).

However, in the conventional Hybridcast specification, an application ofHTML5 is downloaded on the communication side, and the application isstarted according to an issue of an event message. For this reason, theconventional Hybridcast specification does not cope with communicationcontents reproduction control based on PTS (Presentation Time Stamp) orDTS (Decoding Time Stamp) in the audio and video frames on the broadcastside, and thus cannot cope with high-definition synchronous reproductionsuch that display times of broadcast contents and communication contentsare allowed to synchronize with each other in frame unit.

This modified example describes a system where the conventionalHybridcast specification is extended and broadcast contents andcommunication contents are synchronously reproduced with highdefinition.

The following describes extension of the application control informationthat enables the high-definition synchronous reproduction, and thendescribes the transmitting method and the reproducing method in thismodified example.

[Execution Mode]

In the application control information in this modified example,information indicating an execution mode when an application is executedis introduced. The execution mode includes a mode 1 and a mode 2, andexamples of the execution modes are described below.

(Mode 1)

Mode 1 does not require high-definition synchronization with anothercontents.

Further, in mode 1, like the application of the conventional Hybridcaststandards, start or state transition is carried out by control codessuch as AUTOSTART, PRESENT, PREFETCH, or event messages. In mode 1, thesynchronous reproduction with reference to PTS or DTS of another audioand video streams is not necessary.

An example of the application of the conventional Hybridcast standardsis VOD (Video On Demand). In VOD, when the application is started, UI onwhich a reproduction start button is arranged is displayed, and when theuser presses down the reproduction start button, contents are started tobe downloaded or streamed so as to be reproduced.

(Mode 2)

Mode 2 requires high-definition synchronization with contents to betransmitted on a transmission path other than a broadcast wave.

In mode 2, for example, a broadcast video and an audio acquired throughthe application are reproduced with their PTSs being synchronized witheach other. Further, for example, when video scalability is applied,data of a basic layer to be transmitted through broadcast and data of anextended layer to be acquired through the application are decoded to bedisplayed by using DTSs and PTSs that synchronize with each other. Thestreams such as the audio and the video to be synchronously reproducedare acquired with reference to attribute information of theabove-described contents.

(Operation of Application in Mode 2)

In the application, a method for reproducing communication contents isdecided based on the above execution mode. Since the operation in mode 1is similar to a conventional operation, description thereof is omitted,and thus the operation of the application in mode 2 is described below.

The basic operation when the broadcast contents and the communicationcontents are synchronously reproduced is as illustrated in a flowchartof FIG. 9.

When the communication contents are decoded to be reproduced accordingto DTS and PTS converted into the synchronized clocks after the clocksynchronization, a communication contents process can be executedindependently from a broadcast contents reproducing process.

On the other hand, when space scalability is applied in a video and abasic layer and an extended layer are transmitted through broadcast andcommunication, respectively, the extended layer is decoded by using adecoded result of the basic layer. For this reason, the broadcastcontents process and the communication contents decoding processesshould be integrated to be controlled. Further, when the broadcastcontents and the communication contents are buffered and started to bereproduced or a reception buffer of any one of the contents duringreproduction overflows or underflows, the reproduction processes on boththe transmission paths should be integrated to be controlled. Forexample, when data reception on the overflow side is stopped orunderflow occurs, both the reproducing processes on the broadcastcontents and communication contents are stopped for a predetermined timelength or until data of a predetermined size can be received.

When at least any processes of reception, decoding and reproduction onboth the transmission paths are integrated to be controlled, a controlcommand is delivered between the communication application and thebroadcast contents reproducing processor. For example, the operation isperformed by the following control command.

1) In Relation To Decoding Process: For example, data of an access unitcorresponding to specific DTS or PTS is requested, and the operation isperformed by a control command to be acquired. Only at the reproductionstart time, the access units where synchronization is taken on broadcastand communication are acquired, and thereafter, data of the next accessunit in ascending order of DTSs or PTSs is requested, and a controlcommand to be acquired may be used.

2) In Relation To Data Reception: The operation is performed by acontrol command for instructing stop and restart of data reception ortransmitting a state of accumulation of data by an amount that satisfiesa predetermined condition in a buffer for pre-buffering. In the stop andrestart of data reception, later-stage processes such as decoding andreproduction may be stopped or restarted, or control commands for thelater-stage specific processes may be additionally defined.

In the application operation in mode 2, countermeasures against overflowand underflow of the buffer for pre-buffering include a countermeasurefor performing the reproduction when the data on both the transmissionpaths are prepared and a countermeasure for reproducing only prepareddata and skipping the reproduction of unprepared data.

Therefore, in addition to the specification of the reproduction mode,information indicating the countermeasure against the overflow and theunderflow of the buffer for pre-buffering may be enabled to bespecified.

For example, since congestion does not occur on the broadcasttransmission path and thus the underflow is not caused by congestion,broadcast contents are reproduced according to DTS and PTS of an accessunit. When the underflow of the buffer of communication contents occursdue to congestion of the communication path, the reproduction of theaccess unit of the communication contents where data is not present inDTS is skipped.

When DASH is used as the communication contents and the underflow of thebuffer occurs, not all subsequent segments are acquired so that somesegments are skipped. As a result, the reproduction can be quicklystarted.

More specifically, the respective segments of DASH are SEG1, SEG2, SEG3,. . . in ascending order of DTSs, and DTSs of head access units of thesegments are T1, T2, T3, . . . . In this case, when the underflow occursduring the reception of SEG1, the reception of SEG2 is skipped and SEG3is received. As a result, data of the head access unit of SEG3 is likelyto be capable of being received at time T3, and thus the decoding andreproduction of both the broadcast and communication contents can bestarted from time T3. When SEG2 is received, the underflow is likely tocontinue, and thus the quick restart of the reproduction is expected byskipping the reception segment.

Further, for example, when the underflow occurs on the communicationside, the reproduction of the broadcast contents is stopped while thedata buffering of the communication contents is completed and the datais enabled to be reproduced.

When the attribute information of the contents to be transmitted throughbroadcast PMT indicates that the communication contents are to bereproduced synchronously with broadcast contents, or locationinformation can be identified as a specific file such as MPD of DASHbased on an extension of the location information of the communicationcontents, the execution mode may be decided without explicitlydescribing the execution mode as control information.

Further, when contents to be transmitted through a plurality oftransmission paths, the reception to the reproduction through broadcastand communication may be controlled by a single application.

[Application Control Information]

The following describes an example where when broadcast contents andcommunication contents are synchronously reproduced, information aboutdata to be transmitted through communication is stored in applicationcontrol information in the Hybridcast specification.

FIG. 6A and FIG. 6B illustrate an example where location informationabout communication data is stored in a transmission path identifyingdescriptor and in PMT. In this modified example, the transmission pathidentifying descriptor is stored in the application control information.

In the conventional Hybridcast specification, the transmission pathidentifying descriptor is not stored in the application controlinformation, and since the location information should be acquired afterthe execution of the application, a delay occurs. On the contrary, whenthe transmission path identifying descriptor is stored in theapplication control information and the location information is stored(arranged) in the transmission path identifying descriptor, theacquisition of contents can be started more quickly.

The application control information is, for example, AIT:ApplicationInformation Table), and is information for controlling start, end,resource, and access of the application. For example, an application IDfor specifying the application, a control code that can control a lifecycle such as start and end of the application, and the locationinformation about the application are described in the applicationcontrol information. Further, as to the application control information,a section format and an XML format are defined, and the transmissionsystem includes a transmitting method using the section format and amethod for transmitting the application control information of the XMLformat through data carousel. When the application control informationis transmitted, a data encoding system descriptor including“ati_dentifier_info( )” is arranged in an ES loop of PMT.

FIG. 11A and FIG. 11B are diagrams illustrating one example of the datastructure of the application control information in the broadcastcommunication cooperative service according to the fourth modifiedexample of the first exemplary embodiment. Specifically, FIG. 11A andFIG. 11B illustrate an example where information about data to betransmitted through communication is stored in the application controlinformation of the section format.

Also in this modified example, in order to indicate the attributeinformation described with reference to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, thetransmission path identifying descriptor is stored in a descriptor ofeach application. For example, since the program information in TS suchas PMT indicates only the location information about data to betransmitted through TS, when the contents data are transmitted by thecombination with communication, the location information about thecommunication data is stored in the transmission path identifyingdescriptor. More specifically, flag information indicating thecombination of broadcast and communication is used is allowed to beincluded in the attribute information, so that a selection is madeaccording to a value of the flag information whether the locationinformation about the communication data is included.

The location information is information indicating a data acquisitiondestination, and the location information corresponds to PID in the TSsection and corresponds to URL or URI in communication. MPD (MediaPresentation Description) of DASH or SDP (Session Description Protocol)in RTP can be stored as the location information.

A descriptor may be additionally defined so that the locationinformation is stored. Further, entity data of location information suchas MPD and SDP is not stored, and information indicating entity dataacquisition destination may be indicated.

For example, URL for acquiring MPD may be indicated. However, since adelay is caused by additional acquisition of the entity data of thelocation information, it is desirable for reducing the delay until thestart of the reception of the communication data that the entity data isstored directly. However, since MPD of DASH includes various informationabout the contents acquisition destination, the size of MPD is large.Therefore, MPD is not directly stored, and subset information includingonly information relating to URL of the contents acquisition destinationand relating to DTS and PTS of a segment may be stored.

This modified example, as illustrated in FIG. 11A and FIG. 11B,describes the example where the transmission path identifying descriptoris stored in the loop of each application, but the present disclosure isnot limited to this.

For example, when one transmission path identifying descriptor is sharedby a plurality of applications, the transmission path identifyingdescriptor may be stored in a loop of at least one of the applicationsusing the transmission path identifying descriptors. In this case,information for allowing the transmission path identifying descriptorsto be referred to is indicated in residual application loops so thatdescriptors can be omitted. The information for enabling thetransmission path identifying descriptor to be referred to is, forexample, a loop number of the application where the transmission pathidentifying descriptor is stored or an application ID.

Further, the transmission path identifying descriptors are stored inloops (room number N) just below the application control information,respectively, and identifiers for enabling the transmission pathidentifying descriptors to be specified are given, respectively, so thatthe identifiers to be referred to in the applications may be referredto.

Further, the example where the entity of the location information isstored in the transmission path identifying descriptor is not limited tothe above example.

For example, when the entity size of the location information is large,the transmission path identifying descriptor including the entity of thelocation information or the application information including thetransmission path identifying descriptor may be described in a loopafter the application information that does not include the entity ofthe location information (a loop N1). As a result, data other than theentity data of the location information can be acquired on ahead.Further, the receiving apparatus that does not have to acquire theentity data of the location information may complete the acquisition ofthe application control information without completely acquiring theentity data of the location information.

Further, information indicating the acquisition destination of theentity of location information may be indicated inside the application.At this time, instead of the acquisition destination of the entity ofthe location information, information that enables the application whoseacquisition destination is indicated to be specified (for example, anapplication ID and URL of the application) may be indicated, or theacquisition destination of the entity of the location information doesnot have to be indicated.

Further, FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating another example of the datastructure of the application control information in the broadcastcommunication cooperative service according to the fourth modifiedexample of the first exemplary embodiment. That is to say, in thismodified example, as illustrated in FIG. 12, information indicating thatan application information identifier includes a transmissionidentifying descriptor or attribute information may be stored in adescriptor such as “ati_dentifier_info( )” to be stored in PMT. Thereceiver analyzes PMT, so as to be capable of understandingbroadcast-communication-cooperative contents earlier, and thus a timeuntil broadcast contents and communication contents are synchronouslyreproduced can be shortened.

Further, only the attribute information in the transmission pathidentifying descriptors may be transmitted through PMT.

Further, for example, the identifier such as the application type mayindicate that the application is an HTML5 application that is operatedin cooperation with broadcast.

This modified example describes the application control information ofthe section format, but the present disclosure is not limited to this.The transmission path identifying descriptor may be stored in theapplication control information of the XML format. In this case, thetransmission path identifying descriptor may be expressed by the sectionformat or the XML format.

Further, in this modified example, another section is defined withoutusing the application control information, so that a similar functionmay be realized. In this case, information for specifying a sectionincluding the transmission path identifying descriptor (PID or a streamtype) may be stored in PMT. It is desirable that this modified examplecan cope with updating of the contents of the location information suchas MPD. For example, the updating of MPD may be indicated by a versionnumber of the application control information. Alternatively, when acontrol code in the application control information is used and thecontrol code indicates “MPD CHANGE”, MPD is updated. When MPD isacquired through communication, the application may be allowed toreacquire the control code as “MPD_REROAD”.

Further, in this modified example, the attribute information and thelocation information may be transmitted in both program information suchas PMT and the transmission path identifying descriptor. In this case,only the location information may be stored in the transmission pathidentifying descriptor.

Further, in this modified example, after the communication data isstarted to be acquired based on the location information acquiredthrough broadcast, the updated contents of the location information maybe acquired through communication. At this time, since the acquisitiondestination of the location information is required, the acquisitiondestination of the location information as well as the entity data ofthe location information may be stored in the transmission pathidentifying descriptor of broadcast. The receiving apparatusperiodically accesses to the acquisition destination of the locationinformation so as to be capable of acquiring the updated contentsthrough communication. When the message exchange system is presentbetween the DASH contents distributing server and the receivingapparatus, a message indicating the updating of the location informationis issued from the server to the receiving apparatus, and when thereceiving apparatus receives the message, it may reacquire the locationinformation.

Further, in this modified example, information indicating a correlationbetween reference clocks of the broadcast data and the communicationdata described with reference to FIG. 6A and FIG. 6B may be included inthe transmission path identifying descriptor or the application controlinformation.

Further, in this modified example, the transmission path identifyingdescriptor may represent information about a protocol of a transportlayer such as whether the communication data is transmitted according toUDP (User Datagram Protocol) or TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). Asa result, in the receiving apparatus, a determination can be madewhether a port to be used in each protocol is opened or whether thereceiving apparatus copes with the protocol to be used. Further, adiscrimination may be made whether the multiplexing format in thecommunication data is, for example, DASH or RTP by presentingidentification information. As a result, for example, when amultiplexing format is DASH, a determination can be made that thelocation information is described in the MPD format.

[Transmitting Method]

In this exemplary embodiment, the transmitting side transmits contents(data or an asset) using a broadcast wave and a communication path, butthe application control information is transmitted prior to thetransmission of the contents.

[Receiving Method]

In this exemplary embodiment, the receiving side starts to receive(acquire) contents after acquisition of the application controlinformation. The receiving method in this modified example is describedbelow with reference to the drawings. That is to say, an operationalexample of the receiving apparatus in the combination of broadcast andcommunication using the Hybridcast specification is described. Thismodified example describes an example where broadcast transmission isperformed by using TS, and communication transmission is performed byusing DASH or RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol).

FIG. 13A is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the fourth modified example of the first exemplaryembodiment. FIG. 13A illustrates an operational example when theattribute information and the location information are stored in thebroadcast application control information. The asset described in FIG.13A is data about TS on the broadcast side and DASH and RTP on thecommunication side. The attribute information is equivalent to thecontents described with reference to FIG. 7A.

The application control information is acquired in step S501. A nextoperation in step S502 is performed, but since operations after stepS502 (step S502, step S504 to step S506) are the same as the operationsdescribed with reference to FIG. 7A (step S201, step S203 to step S205),description thereof is omitted. Only different operation in step S503 isdescribed below.

A decision is made in step S503 whether data to be transmitted throughcommunication is received based on the information about thetransmission path identifying descriptor, and whether the application tobe transmitted through communication is received based on the locationinformation about the application described in the application controlinformation.

FIG. 13B is a flowchart illustrating a comparative example of theoperation on the receiving side in the broadcast communicationcooperative service according to the fourth modified example of thefirst exemplary embodiment. FIG. 13B illustrates an operational examplewhen access information for acquiring the attribute information and thelocation information is stored in the broadcast program information andentity of the location information is not stored.

After the application control information is acquired in step S601, anext operation in step S602 is performed, but since operations afterstep S602 (step S602, step S604 to step S607) are the same as theoperations described with reference to FIG. 7B (step S301, step S303 tostep S305), description thereof is omitted.

A decision is made in step S603 whether data to be transmitted throughcommunication is received based on the information about thetransmission path identifying descriptor, and whether the application tobe transmitted through communication is received based on the locationinformation about the application described in the application controlinformation.

When an operation flow illustrated in FIG. 13A is compared with theoperation flow illustrated in FIG. 13B, the operation flow in FIG. 13does not have a step of acquiring the location information on thecommunication side. As a result, in the operation on the receiving sideillustrated in FIG. 13A, the start of communication data reception canbe quickly acquired.

Further, in the operation flow illustrated in FIG. 13A, processescorresponding to step S405, step S406, and step S407 described withreference to FIG. 9 may be executed. That is to say, a decision is madewhether the broadcast contents and the communication contents aresynchronously reproduced, and when they are synchronously reproduced,synchronization information is acquired from the transmission pathidentifying descriptor, and reference clocks of broadcast andcommunication are allowed to synchronize so that both the contents maybe synchronously reproduced.

Further, at a time point when the determination is made in step S503 andstep S603 that data to be transmitted through communication is received,the start of the application may be prepared.

For example, a browser of HTML5 is actuated at the time point when thedetermination is made that the data transmitted through communication isreceived, so that a time until the execution of the application can beshortened.

Further, for example, when a determination is made in step S603 that thelocation information on the communication side is received throughcommunication, the application is immediately started so that thelocation information on the communication side may be acquired. Further,after the location information on the communication side is acquired,buffering of communication contents may be started. The buffering starttiming may be instructed by the control command of application controlinformation, or time information about pre-buffering is described in thelocation information on the communication side and is analyzed by thereceiving apparatus so as to be pre-buffered.

As the application for acquiring the location information on thecommunication side or the application for acquiring the communicationcontents, the application specified by the application controlinformation may be acquired through broadcast or communication so as tobe executed. Further, the application for acquiring the locationinformation on the communication side and the application for acquiringthe communication contents may be realized as resident applications. Forexample, execution of the HTML5 application and the residentapplication, and data acquisition may be controlled by the controlcommand of the application control information, or the execution of theHTML5 application and the resident application, and the data acquisitionmay be controlled by a determination in the receiving apparatus.

Further, when information relating to an ability of the receivingapparatus necessary for reproducing the contents is described in thelocation information, the receiving apparatus acquires the reproducingability of the receiving apparatus according to an API command. In thiscase, authority to acquire the reproducing ability of the receivingapparatus is given to the application for analyzing the locationinformation. For example, after the location information on thecommunication side is acquired in step S605, when a determination ismade that the receiving apparatus cannot reproduce the contents, thesequence goes to step S607, the receiving apparatus may receive onlydata to be transmitted through broadcast.

Further, a control may be realized by the API command so that thelocation information on the communication side and information about thecommunication contents acquired by various methods are stored in amemory of the receiving apparatus, are acquired from the memory, and areexchanged between applications. The applications can acquire some or allpieces of the location information on the communication side byexecuting the API command. For example, the location informationacquired by the resident application is set in the memory of thereceiving apparatus by the API command, and can be gotten from thememory by the API command in the HTML5 application.

Effects of the First Exemplary Embodiment

According to this exemplary embodiment, identification informationindicating whether contents including audios and videos are transmittedthrough the combination of broadcast and communication, and informationindicating a dependence relationship between data to be transmittedthrough both transmission paths at the time of the combination ofbroadcast and communication may be generated as contents managementinformation so as to be transmitted. For example, information indicatingthe dependence relationship between data may indicate whether data to betransmitted through both the transmission paths are synchronouslyreproduced. Further, the information indicating the dependencerelationship between data may indicate that pieces of clock informationof data to be transmitted through both the transmission paths areidentical to each other.

As a result, since the transmission paths through which the contentsincluding audios and videos are transmitted, and the dependencerelationship between the data to be transmitted through differenttransmission paths can be acquired at the time of starting the receptionof the contents, a delay time relating to a decision of an asset to bereceived and the start of the acquisition of the communication contentscan be reduced.

Further, according to this exemplary embodiment, the locationinformation about the data to be transmitted through communication maybe included in the contents management information. The locationinformation about the data to be transmitted may be, for example, MPD inMPEG-DASH. Further, not entity data of the location information such asMPD but information indicating the acquisition destination of thelocation information may be stored in the contents managementinformation.

As a result, since the transmission paths through which the contentsincluding audios and videos are transmitted, and the dependencerelationship between the data to be transmitted through differenttransmission paths can be acquired at the time of starting the receptionof the contents, a delay time relating to a decision of an asset to bereceived and the start of the acquisition of the communication contentscan be reduced.

Further, according to this exemplary embodiment, in the receivingapparatus, the contents management information is analyzed so that atransmission path through which contents are received and data to bereceived through the transmission paths may be decided. Further, whendata to be transmitted through both the transmission paths aresynchronously reproduced, auxiliary information necessary for clocksynchronization between the data may be acquired so that DTSs and PTSsof the data are synchronized, and the data may be decoded to bereproduced.

As a result, the receiving apparatus that receives only broadcast datacan reproduce the broadcast data according to the operation similar tothe conventional broadcast reception, and simultaneously can cope withreproduction of communication data.

Further, a system for synchronizing broadcast and communication datawith each other so as to reproduce these data can be provided to thereceiving apparatus.

Further, this exemplary embodiment can realize the contents transmittingmethod, the receiving method, the transmitting apparatus, and thereceiving apparatus for enabling a quick access to contents throughcommunication when the contents are reproduced by using the combinationof broadcast and communication on the receiving side.

For example, in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, atransmitting method for transmitting contents using a broadcast wave anda communication path includes an information transmitting step of, whencontents are transmitted by using the broadcast wave and thecommunication path, allowing application control information to includeinformation that is for synchronizing the contents through the broadcastwave and the contents through the communication path when the contentsare received by a receiving side and that relates to the contents to betransmitted through the communication path, and transmitting theapplication control information using at least the broadcast wave in thebroadcast wave and the communication path.

As a result, when contents are transmitted by using the broadcast waveand the communication path, the application control information isallowed to include information that is for synchronizing the contentsusing the broadcast wave and the contents using the communication pathwhen the receiving side receives the contents and that relates to thecontents to be transmitted through the communication path, and theapplication control information is transmitted. For this reason, whenthe receiving side receives the application control information, thereceiving side is enabled to quickly access to the contents usingcommunication according to this information, and is enabled tosynchronize both the contents with each other.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, prior totransmission of the contents, the application control information istransmitted, and the application control information may further includelocation information indicating an acquisition destination of thecontents or information indicating an acquisition destination of thelocation information.

Further, the receiving method from one aspect of this exemplaryembodiment includes a receiving step of receiving contents transmittedby using a broadcast wave and a communication path, and a reproducingstep of, when application control information that is for synchronizingthe contents using the broadcast wave and the contents using thecommunication path and includes information about the contents to betransmitted through the communication path is received from at least thebroadcast wave in the broadcast wave and the communication path,executing the synchronizing process so as to reproduce the contents.

As a result, the application control information to be transmitted onthe transmission path such as the broadcast wave to be the entry pointis acquired, and when the application control information includes theinformation that is for synchronizing the contents through the broadcastwave and the contents through the communication path and that relates tothe contents to be transmitted through the communication path, thesynchronizing process can be performed.

Further, for example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception ofthe contents, the application control information is received, and whenthe application control information includes the location informationindicating an acquisition destination of the contents, the contents areacquired based on the location information so that the contents may bereceived.

Further, for example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception ofthe contents, the application control information is received, and whenthe application control information includes information indicating anacquisition destination of location information indicating anacquisition destination of the contents, the location information isacquired based on the information indicating the acquisition destinationof the location information, and the contents are acquired from theacquired location information so that the contents may be received.

Further, the transmitting apparatus according to one aspect of the thisexemplary embodiment for transmitting contents using a broadcast waveand a communication path includes an information transmitter that, whenthe contents are transmitted by using the broadcast wave and thecommunication path, allows application control information to includeinformation which is for synchronizing the contents using the broadcastwave and the contents using the communication path when a receiving sidereceives the contents and which relates to the contents to betransmitted through the communication path and that transmits theapplication control information using at least the broadcast wave in thebroadcast wave and the communication path.

Further, the receiving apparatus according to one aspect of thisexemplary embodiment includes a receiver that receives contentstransmitted by using a broadcast wave and a communication path, and areproducer that, when application control information includinginformation which is for synchronizing the contents through thebroadcast wave and the contents through the communication path and whichrelates to the contents to be transmitted through the communication pathis received, executes the synchronizing process so as to reproduce thecontents.

Second Exemplary Embodiment First Example

For example, in a third example of the first modified example, a methodfor storing the location information in the case of the transmissionusing TS for broadcast and DASH or RTP for communication is describedwith reference to FIG. 6A to FIG. 7B, but the storage method is notlimited to this.

This exemplary embodiment describes one specific example of the methodfor storing the location information as the first example.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating one example of the data structure ofthe service information in the broadcast communication cooperativeservice according to a first example of a second exemplary embodiment.FIG. 14 illustrates an example of a descriptor (location informationdescriptor) indicating the location information such as MPD. Thelocation information may be included in the above-described transmissionpath identifying descriptor. For this reason, the location informationdescriptor may be considered to correspond to the transmission pathidentifying descriptor.

In this exemplary embodiment, the descriptor is stored in section datadifferent form PMT or PMT.

The information indicated by this descriptor includes a transmissionformat indicating a type of entity data to be referred to in thelocation information, the location information, and a field indicatinginformation about synchronization between PCR on broadcast and data oncommunication.

The location information in this exemplary embodiment indicates areference destination of the entity data of the location information.Here the example where the entity data of the location information isMPD is indicated, MPD is indicated as the transmission format, andinformation about synchronization between PCR and NTP is indicated asthe synchronization information.

Since MPD is the location information to be used in DASH, DASH isindicated as the transmission format, and the reference destination ofMPD may be indicated as a location. When the transmission format can beidentified by an extension in URL of the location information, a fieldof the transmission format does not have to be included. Further, MPD istransmitted using two ways including broadcast and a communicationnetwork, and when MPD is transmitted on broadcast, a private section ofMPEG-2 TS is used. Therefore, as the location information of MPD,identification information about a TS packet for storing MPD in atransport stream such as PID of the private section is indicated, andwhen MPD is transmitted via the communication network, information suchas URL can be indicated.

[Receiving Method]

As the receiving method according to this exemplary embodiment, oneexample of the operation of the receiving apparatus when the descriptorindicating the location information is analyzed and broadcast andcommunication contents are synchronously reproduced is described below.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the first example of the second exemplary embodiment.

The location information descriptor to be stored in PMT is analyzed instep S801.

A determination is made in step S802 whether MPD is present inbroadcast. When MPD is present in broadcast (MPD is transmitted throughbroadcast) (Yes in S802), the sequence goes to step S803, and entitydata of MPD is acquired from the TS packet having PID indicated by thelocation information. On the other hand, when MPD is not present inbroadcast (No in S802), MPD is acquired from a communication serverbased on URL indicated by the location information.

Data to be acquired from DASH contents is decided based on the analyzedresult of MPD in step S805, and the data is acquired by download (orprogressive download).

When synchronization information included in the location informationdescriptor or timeline extension of MPEG-2 TS is used in step S806, thebroadcast contents and the communication contents are synchronouslyreproduced based on synchronization information acquired from the TSpacket storing timeline extension information.

When the timeline extension is used, the synchronization informationdoes not have to be included in the location information descriptor.Further, when the DASH contents and the broadcast contents do not haveto be synchronously reproduced, the synchronization information does nothave to be transmitted. In this case, a determination may be madewhether the synchronous reproduction of both the contents is necessarybased on whether the synchronization information in the locationinformation descriptor or the synchronization information in timelineextension data is present. Whether the synchronous reproduction isnecessary may be additionally indicated.

Further, when the synchronous reproduction is not necessary, start andend of the reproduction of the DASH contents can be decided in step S806based on a user's instruction or a control command in a Hybridcastapplication. In this case, a decision is made at a former stage of S801whether data is acquired through communication.

An example where MPD is acquired and the DASH contents are reproduced isdescribed with reference to FIG. 15, but much the same is true on a casewhere data of another system such as RTP or TS is acquired to bereproduced.

In the timeline extension, an access unit for storing the timelineextension information is defined, and both a descriptor indicating thelocation information and a descriptor indicating the synchronizationinformation can be stored in the access unit.

Therefore, the location information descriptor is not transmitted, andboth the location information and the synchronization information may beindicated by the timeline extension. In the current timeline extension,PID cannot be indicated as the location information, and a fieldindicating a scheme type of the location information may be extended, sothat PID can be signaled.

Further, an upper limit of the section size of PMT is limited to 1021bytes but the section occasionally exceeds the upper limit depending onURL in the location information. The PMT section can be divided to bestored, but it is desirable that particularly PMT is stored in onesection.

Therefore, when the section size of PMT exceeds 1021 bytes, the locationinformation descriptor may be transmitted by a section different fromPMT. When the location information indicates PID, the size of PMT can bemade to fall within the upper limit and the location information can beincluded in PMT. For this reason, the section where the locationinformation is stored may be switched based on whether the locationinformation is PID or URL.

Second Example

The first example describes that the location information can beindicated in a TEMI (Timeline and Extend Media Information stream)access unit in the timeline extension.

Specifically, URL of the communication contents can be described byusing “temi_location_descriptor”. Since URLs of a plurality of contentscan be described in “Temi_location_descriptor”, and restrictions of datasize of this descriptor are not present unlike the section size of PMT,a flexible operation can be performed for description of URLs.

On the other hand, when PID of a TS packet in a transport stream isindicated as the location information, the data size of the locationinformation is small, and location information is acquired at a time ofanalyzing PMT with reference to the location information descriptor, sothat the delay time relating to acquisition can be reduced. For thisreason, it is desirable that both the location information descriptorand “temi_location_descriptor” in a TEMI access unit can be used asstorage places of the location information.

One example of a syntax (data structure) of the location informationdescriptor according to this exemplary embodiment is described below.

FIG. 16A is a diagram illustrating one example of syntax of locationinformation descriptor according to a second example of the secondexemplary embodiment. FIG. 16A illustrates a syntax example of thelocation information descriptor for storing the location information inany of the location information descriptor and the TEMI access unit.

In the description of this example, information about synchronizationwith PCR is described by using “temi_timeline_descriptor” of the TEMIaccess unit, but is not included in the location information descriptor.Semantics for respective fields shown in FIG. 16A are described.

A format “data format” is similar to the transmission format illustratedin FIG. 14. That is to say, metainformation of reproduction control tobe used in the service, such as MPD in DASH, reproduction controlmetafile in VOD (Video On Demand) specifications of the IPTV forum, orTTS (Time-stamp TS) defined in the IPTV forum, is indicated. Not themetainformation such as TTS, an MP4 file, or encoded data of AV, butidentification information of streams itself may be indicated. MPT inMMT, a PA message, an MMT packet, or an asset may be indicated.

For example, time scalability can be realized in a moving image encodingsystem such as H.265. A basic layer of 60 fps is transmitted throughbroadcast and encoded data of an extended layer for improving a framerate from 60 fps to 120 fps is transmitted through communication. Inthis case, only URL of an encoded stream of the extended layer may beindicated as the location information of communication contents.Information such as resolution and the encoding system in the encodedstream can be acquired in broadcast data whose basic layer is to betransmitted.

A field “location_type” is for identifying the location information asPID of TS in broadcast, or URL in communication. When location_type=0,PID of TS in broadcast is indicated. The location information descriptorcan be used also in, for example, MMT (MPEG Media Transport) of MPEGother than TS. In formats other than TS, “location_type” does not haveto be used. For example, another information such as “packet_id” of theMMT packet in MMT for identifying a location may be used.

“PID” indicates PID of the TS packet. When broadcast is formed by aplurality of transport streams, an identification number of thetransport stream may be also stored.

A field “url_location” indicates whether URL of the communicationcontents is stored in the location information descriptor or the TEMIaccess unit. In this example, when url_location=0, URL is stored in thelocation information descriptor. When “url_location” indicates 1, URL ofthe communication contents is stored in “temi_location_descriptor” inthe TEMI access unit.

A field “url_length” indicates a byte length of “url_path”. A field“url_path” indicates data about URL.

FIG. 16B is a diagram illustrating one example of syntax of locationinformation descriptor according to the second example of the secondexemplary embodiment. FIG. 16B illustrates an example different from thesyntax of the location information descriptor illustrated in FIG. 16A. Adifference from the syntax illustrated in FIG. 16A is that when thelocation information is stored in the TEMI access unit, a filed“data_format” is not present.

A field “Temi_location_descriptor” can indicate a service type of TEMIin a field “service_type”. This service type corresponds to“data_format”. Therefore, the information “data_format” is indicated inthe field “service_type”.

In the syntax illustrated in FIG. 16A, the fields “data_format” and“service_type” of “temi_location_descriptor” occasionally coexist. Inthis case, both of them indicate the same information.

A field “service_type” is not signaled in “temi_location_descriptor”,and only URL of the communication contents can be indicated. Therefore,when the syntax in FIG. 16A is used, “data_format” of the locationinformation descriptor is referred to as the transmission format, and“service_type” of “temi_location_descriptor” does not have to besignaled.

FIG. 16C is a diagram illustrating one example of syntax of locationinformation descriptor according to the second example of the secondexemplary embodiment. FIG. 16C illustrates an example different from thesyntax of the location information descriptor illustrated in FIGS. 16Aand 16B.

A difference from FIG. 16A is that a condition of “url_location” isbranched. That is to say, when url_location=0 and the locationinformation is in the location information descriptor, PID of TS onbroadcast and communication URL are stored according to “location_type”.On the other hand, when url_location=1, “location_type” is not describedin the location information descriptor, and in“temi_location_descriptor” in the TEMI access unit, “location_type” isindicated in the field “service_type” and PID of TS on broadcast orcommunication URL is stored in “temi_location_descriptor”.

FIG. 16D is a diagram illustrating one example of syntax of the locationinformation descriptor according to the second example of the secondexemplary embodiment. FIG. 16D illustrates an example different from thesyntax of the location information descriptor illustrated in FIG. 16A toFIG. 16C.

A difference from FIG. 16A is that “url_location” is integrated with“location_type”. When location_type=0, it indicates PID of broadcast,and when location_type=1, it indicates communication URL. Further, whenlocation_type=2, it indicates that PID of TS on broadcast orcommunication URL is stored in “temi_location_descriptor” in the TEMIaccess unit.

The data and the data structure of the syntax of the locationinformation descriptor are not limited to the above examples. Forexample, different data may be combined in such a manner that thelocation type and the format type are integrated to be indicated.Further, for example, when the transmission format can be identified byextension in URL of the location information, the field of thetransmission format does not have to be included. Further, for example,when the location information descriptor is not present, the locationinformation is indicated by “temi_location_descriptor”, and a field“url_location” may be omitted.

Third Example

An example different from the location information described in thesecond example is described below.

(Another Example of Location Information)

For example, when two or more kinds of timelines are present in oneprogram, a plurality of TEMI streams is occasionally included for eachkind of time lines.

In this case, plural pieces of location information may be stored in thelocation information descriptor. When the plural pieces of locationinformation are stored, loops whose number is the same as a number ofthe TEMI streams are generated in the location information descriptor,and the location information is stored for the respective TEMI streams.Further, as a method that indicates correspondence relationships betweenthe plurality of location information loops and the plurality of TEMIstreams in the location information descriptor, for example, thelocation information loops and ES loops (PMT second loops) indicatingthe TEMI streams that are matched with each other as to order mayestablish the correspondence relationships. Further, when two or morekinds of timelines are present, the location information is not storedin the location information descriptor but may be stored in“temi_location_descriptor” of the TEMI access unit, or the locationinformation descriptor may be stored in the ES loops (the PMT secondloops).

(Updating of Location Information)

It is desirable that this example can cope with updating of the contentsof the location information such as metainformation.

For example, when a reload flag is added to the location informationdescriptor in PMT and the contents of the location information areupdated, reload=1. The receiving apparatus regards the contents of thelocation information as being updated when reload=1, and may reacquirePID and URL stored in the location information. When the locationinformation such as PID and URL is not updated, and only data isupdated, only the data may be reacquired.

Further, the location information or information indicating whethercontents of data such as MPD in which an acquisition destination isindicated by the location information may be independently indicated.

Further, the location information descriptor in PMT to be periodicallytransmitted may be sequentially checked. However, since the sequentialchecking process is heavy, section data for storage of the locationinformation descriptor, or an event section for notification of updatingmay be additionally generated so as to be periodically transmitted.

In the receiving apparatus, a version number of the section is checkedso that a determination can be made whether the location information isupdated. Further, when the location information is transmitted through abroadcast section, a version number of the section of the locationinformation is updated so that updating of metainformation is indicated.

Further, after acquisition of communication data is started based on thelocation information acquired through broadcast, updated contents of thelocation information may be acquired through communication.

[Receiving Method]

As the receiving method according to this example, one example of theoperation of the receiving apparatus when the descriptor indicating thelocation information is analyzed and broadcast and communicationcontents are synchronously reproduced is described below.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the third example of the second exemplary embodiment.

Step S804 in FIG. 15 is changed into step S906, step S907, and step S908in FIG. 17. Since the other operations (step S901 to step S905) aresimilar to the operations (step S801 to step S803, step S805, and stepS806) in FIG. 15, description thereof is omitted.

A determination is made in step S906 whether an acquisition destinationURL of MPD is stored in the location information descriptor or the TEMIaccess unit. When the URL is in the location information descriptor (Yesin S906), the sequence goes to step S907, and the location informationdescriptor is analyzed, so that MPD is acquired from the communicationserver based on URL indicated in the location information. On the otherhand, when the determination is made in step S906 that URL is stored inthe TEMI access unit (No in S906), MPD is acquired from thecommunication server based on URL indicated in“temi_location_descriptor” in the TEMI access unit.

FIG. 17 illustrates an example where MPD is indicated as formatinformation, but broadcast contents and communication contents can besynchronously reproduced by the similar flow operation even in anothermetainformation.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart illustrating another example of the operation onthe receiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the third example of the second exemplary embodiment. FIG.18 illustrates the operation when format information is metainformationother than MPD. More specifically, when not the metainformation such asMPD but a format of entity data such as a stream is indicated in theformat information, URL of entity data of the stream is acquired insteadof URL of metainformation in step S907 and step S908 illustrated in FIG.11.

At first, the receiving apparatus analyzes the location informationdescriptor in step S1001.

A determination is made whether data indicated in the format is presentin broadcast (step S1002). When the data is present in the broadcast(Yes in S1002), the sequence goes to step S1003, and PID indicated inthe location information is acquired. Since it is not assumed that theentity data such as the stream is included in broadcast, when data ispresent in broadcast, the format is confirmed to be metadata.

A metainformation file is acquired from a broadcast stream based on PID(step S1004), and communication data to be acquired is decided (stepS1005).

On the other hand, when the data is present on communication in stepS1002 (No in S1002), the sequence goes to step S1008, and adetermination is made whether URL of the communication data is presentin the location information descriptor or in “temi_location_descriptor”of the TEMI access unit. URL is acquired in step S1009 or step S1010according to respective cases.

A determination is made in step S1011 whether the format ismetainformation. When the format is metainformation (Yes in S1011), thesequence goes to step S1012, the metainformation is acquired from thecommunication stream based on URL, and the sequence goes to step S1005so that communication data to be acquired is decided.

After the communication data to be acquired in step Sp1005 is decided orwhen the determination is made in step S1011 that the format is notmetainformation, the sequence goes to step S1006 so that communicationdata is acquired.

Finally, in step S1007, the broadcast contents and the communicationcontents are synchronously reproduced based on synchronizationinformation included in the location information descriptor orsynchronization information indicated by a timeline extension of MPEG-2TS.

Fourth Example

The above description refers to that the determination is made whetherthe broadcast contents and the communication contents are synchronouslyreproduced, and when the synchronous reproduction is performed, thebroadcast contents and the communication contents are acquired andsynchronously reproduced, but the present disclosure is not limited tothis.

In this example, information indicating whether reference clockinformation about an audio and a video to be transmitted throughbroadcast is identical to reference clock information about an audio anda video to be transmitted through communication is included in theservice information (a transmission identification descriptor), and theoperation based on this information is described.

[Information Indicating Whether Reference Clocks (Timelines) ofBroadcast and Communication are Synchronized with Each Other]

When contents using broadcast and communication are transmitted by usingMMT, DASH, RTP, or Hybridcast, information indicating whether thereference clock information about an audio and a video to be transmittedthrough broadcast is identical to the reference clock information aboutan audio and a video to be transmitted through communication may bestored in the transmission identification descriptor, programinformation, EPG, or EIT.

For example, when the contents to be transmitted through broadcast andcommunication are operated based on a common reference clock (forexample, a time stamp is given), information indicating that theoperation is performed based on the common reference clock is stored.Further, when the contents to be transmitted through broadcast andcommunication are operated based on different reference clocks,information indicating that the operation is performed based on thedifferent reference clocks is stored.

Further, only when broadcast and communication use different referenceclocks, information necessary for the synchronization of the referenceclocks (for example, timeline extension information) may be indicated.Further, a storage place of information necessary for thesynchronization of the reference clocks, a type of the informationnecessary for the synchronization of the reference clocks, and a methodfor synchronizing the reference clocks may be indicated.

In the synchronization between the reference clocks, the reference clockused in broadcast can be matched with the reference clock used incommunication and vice versa.

For example, when PCR (Program Clock Reference) is used in broadcast andNTP (Network Time Protocol) is used in communication, DTS and PTS in avideo and an audio on an NTP basis are converted into DTS and PTS on aPCR basis, and a type and a method of the synchronization between thereference clocks may be indicated so that the reference clocks inbroadcast and communication can be synchronized with each other.Further, the type and the method of the synchronization between thereference clocks may be indicated in such a manner that DTS and PTS ofbroadcast and communication are converted so as to be synchronized witha specific clock to be used in the receiving apparatus.

Identification information indicating a type and a method of informationnecessary for the synchronization between the reference clocks isanalyzed, and the reference clocks may be synchronized by a method basedon the identification information.

Further, when a plurality of streams with various reference clocks ispresent, information indicating that the plurality of streams withvarious reference clocks is present may be stored in a descriptor.Descriptors or one descriptor may be indicated for respective variousreference clocks. Information indicating a correspondence relationshipbetween the reference clocks and programs using the reference clocks maybe stored.

As information indicating whether reference clocks are identical to eachother, the above-described descriptor may be indicated, or anotherdescriptor, a table or a section may be used. Further, as the aboveinformation, information indicating whether information necessary forthe clock synchronization (for example, timeline extension information)is present may be indicated. When the information necessary for theclock synchronization is present, the clock information may bedifferent. In another manner, a fact that the clock information isdifferent may be indicated by using attribute information of thecommunication contents indicated in the transmission identificationdescriptor (for example, information relating to a format and a type, orextension described in location information or URL).

In a case of Hybridcast, such information may be stored in an AITcontrolled section or an application.

When the receiving apparatus determines that different pieces of clockinformation is used, the reference clock information of broadcast isallowed to synchronize with the reference clock information ofcommunication. Further, when the determination is made that common clockinformation is used, the synchronization between clocks is determined asbeing unnecessary.

The receiving apparatus may determine whether the reference clock of thebroadcast contents actually synchronizes with the reference clock of thecommunication contents considering all of a result of identifyingwhether reference clock information of data stored in a transmissionidentifying descriptor is identical to each other, as well as user'sselection and user's setting through a user interface, intentions of acontents provider, a service provider and a broadcasting station,specifications of the receiving apparatus, and an intension of areceiver manufacturer.

Further, when determining that the reference clocks synchronize witheach other, the receiving apparatus may actually start thesynchronization at timing after the determination or may start thesynchronization without waiting for the determination, namely, at timingwhen information about the synchronization is acquired. In anothermanner, the synchronization may be started according to the time whenthe communication contents are started to be acquired (for example, aconstant time before the start of the acquisition of the contents or thesame time as the acquisition start time).

Further, when reproduction of a reference clock to be a reference source(for example, PCR of broadcast) is not completed (a clock cannot be useddue to smoothing of an influence of jitter), the clock synchronizationwith the reference source may be started at a time when the clockreproduction of the reference clock information as the reference sourceis completed.

When the information indicating whether the reference clocks ofbroadcast and communication synchronize with each other is indicated byEPG, similarly to buffering of communication contents, a determinationwhether the synchronization of the reference clocks is necessary beforestart of broadcast may be started or the synchronization of thereference clocks may be started. In such a manner, the reference clockssynchronize with each other earlier, so that the service can be providedto viewers more quickly.

The information indicating whether the reference clocks are identical toeach other is not limited to the combination of broadcast andcommunication, and this information can be applied to a case wheretransmission is performed on the same route, and a case where differentpieces of reference clock information is used in data to be acquiredfrom a plurality of routes such as broadcast, communication, andaccumulation format.

Some or all of the functions and processes described in this example maybe implemented by hardware or by software. Some of the functions andprocesses can be implemented as hardware or as software.

For example, when they may be implemented by software, the functions andthe processes described in this example are instructed, a state of thereceiving function may be notified by PUSH, the function to be acquiredmay be packaged by PULL, or an API function may be provided.

The API function can be executed through an application. When thefunctions and the processes are implemented as applications, they may beimplemented by resident applications or an application such as HTML5 maybe used. API may be implemented as exchange of data between theapplications or notification of a state.

A feature of the API function relating to the information indicatingwhether the reference clocks synchronize with each other includes thefollowings 1) to 9).

1) The information indicating whether the reference clock information ofthe broadcast contents and the reference clock information of thecommunication contents are identical to each other is acquired.2) The information indicating whether the synchronization between thereference clocks is necessary is acquired.3) Type and synchronizing methods of the respective pieces of referenceclock information are acquired.4) The information necessary for the clock synchronization (the timelineinformation) is acquired.5) An acquisition destination of the information necessary for the clocksynchronization is acquired.6) The clock information about the reference source is used as aparameter, so that synchronized clock information of the referencedestination is returned. For example, when the reference clocks are notsynchronized, a value indicating the unsynchronized state is returned.7) Start of the synchronization between the reference clocks isinstructed.8) A state indicating whether the reference clocks synchronize with eachother is acquired.9) The synchronized state of the reference clocks is notified.

[Receiving Method]

The following describes one example of an operation such that when theattribute information and the location information are stored in thebroadcast program information, the receiving apparatus determineswhether broadcast contents and communication contents are synchronouslyreproduced as the receiving method of this example with reference to thedrawings.

FIG. 19 is a flowchart illustrating one example of the operation on thereceiving side in the broadcast communication cooperative serviceaccording to the fourth example of the second exemplary embodiment. Theoperation of the flowchart illustrated in FIG. 19 can be applied also tothe broadcast communication cooperative service using any combination ofmultiplexing systems such as MMT, DASH, and RTP. Further, this operationcan be applied also to Hybridcast.

In FIG. 19, it is assumed that the broadcast contents and thecommunication contents synchronize with each other, and thedetermination whether the broadcast contents and the communicationcontents synchronize with each other is omitted.

Further, step S1101 and step S1102 are similar to step S401 and stepS402 in FIG. 9; therefore, description thereof is omitted.

A determination is then made in step S1103 whether the receivingapparatus acquires the communication contents. When the decision is madethat the communication contents are acquired (Yes in S1103), thesequence goes to step S1104, and the data is received from both thebroadcast and communication transmission paths, and a determination ismade in next step S1105 whether the reference clocks of the broadcastcontents and the communication contents are the same as or differentfrom each other.

When the determination is made in step S1105 that the reference clocksare different from each other (Yes in S1105), the sequence goes to stepS1106, and the reference clock of broadcast contents is made tosynchronize with the reference clock of the communication contents sothat both the contents are synchronously reproduced in step S1107.

On the other hand, when the determination is made in step S1105 that thereference clocks are the same as each other (No in S1105), the referenceclocks do not synchronize with each other so that the contents aresynchronously reproduced by using a common clock.

The process for determining whether the synchronization between thereference clocks is necessary may be executed after step S1105. Forexample, a determination is made whether the ability of the receivingapparatus copes with the synchronization between the clocks, whether theclock synchronization is performed as the specification of the receiver,or whether the user allows the clocks synchronize with each using thetype and the method of the clock synchronization. A result, adetermination is made whether comprehensively the reference clocks onbroadcast and communication synchronize with each other according to thedetermined result in step S1105, and the sequence may go to step S1106or step S1107.

Further, the synchronization between the reference clocks in S1106 maybe performed prior to S1104. This is because when reception data ofcontents is pre-buffered and started to be reproduced, after a check ismade that data whose PTS is T1 in the broadcast contents and data whosePTS is T1 in the communication contents (their PTSs already synchronizewith each other) are already received, these data are decoded and arestarted to be reproduced in some cases. Further, this is because whenthe determination is made whether the data to be synchronouslyreproduced are matched, it is necessary that both the reference clocksalready synchronize with each other.

Further, when the clocks cannot synchronize in step S1106 because theclock synchronization information cannot be acquired or because of thespecifications of the receiver, the broadcast and communicationcooperative service cannot be provided to the user in some cases. Inthis case, a determination whether the synchronization is essential or adetermination that the data may be reproduced is made withoutsynchronization, so that a determination may be made whether data to betransmitted through communication in step S1103 is received.

At step S1103, a determination may be made whether the data to betransmitted through communication is actually received considering allof information capable of being identified by the transmissionidentifying descriptor as well as user's selection and setting,intentions of a contents provider, a service provider and a broadcastingstation, specifications of the receiving apparatus, and an intension ofa manufacturer.

[Receiving Apparatus]

One example of the constitution of the receiving apparatus realizing theoperation illustrated in FIG. 19 is described below. FIG. 20 is a blockdiagram illustrating one example of the constitution of the receivingapparatus according to the fourth example of the second exemplaryembodiment.

Receiving apparatus 1100 illustrated in FIG. 20 includes identificationinformation acquiring unit 1101, decider 1102, communication-combineddeterminer 1103, Loc information acquiring unit 1104, broadcast receiver1105, communication receiver 1106, reference clock determiner 1107, andreproducer 1108.

Since identification information acquiring unit 1101 to communicationreceiver 1106 are similar to identification information acquiring unit301 to communication receiver 306 described with reference to FIG. 8,description thereof is omitted.

Reference clock determiner 1107 has a function for executing a processin step S1105 illustrated in FIG. 19. Further, reference clockdeterminer 1107 determines whether reference clocks are different fromeach other, and further may execute a process for determining whetherthe above synchronization between the reference clocks is necessary.

Reproducer 1108 synchronizes the reference clocks based on a methoddecided by a determined result in reference clock determiner 1107 whenthe reference clocks are different from each other, and decodes toreproduce broadcast contents or communication contents.

The function, the constitution of the receiving apparatus, and thereceiving method described in this modified example are examples andthus the present disclosure is not limited to them. Any function,constitution, and method may be used as long as they can realize similarfunction and effect.

Effects of the Second Exemplary Embodiment

According to this exemplary embodiment, identification informationindicating whether contents including audios and videos are transmittedthrough the combination of broadcast and communication, and informationindicating a dependence relationship between data to be transmittedthrough both transmission paths at the time of the combination ofbroadcast and communication may be generated as contents managementinformation so as to be transmitted. For example, information indicatingthe dependence relationship between data may indicate whether data to betransmitted through both the transmission paths are synchronouslyreproduced. Further, the information indicating the dependencerelationship between data may indicate whether the clock information ofdata to be transmitted through both the transmission paths are identicalto each other.

As a result, since the transmission paths through which the contentsincluding audios and videos are transmitted, and the dependencerelationship between the data to be transmitted through differenttransmission paths can be acquired at the time of starting the receptionof the contents, a delay time relating to a decision of an asset to bereceived and the start of the acquisition of the communication contentscan be reduced.

Further, according to this exemplary embodiment, the locationinformation about the data to be transmitted through communication maybe included in the contents management information. The locationinformation about the data to be transmitted may be, for example, MPD inMPEG-DASH. Further, not entity data of the location information such asMPD but information indicating the acquisition destination of thelocation information may be stored in the contents managementinformation.

As a result, since the transmission paths through which the contentsincluding audios and videos are transmitted, and the dependencerelationship between the data to be transmitted through differenttransmission paths can be acquired at the time of starting the receptionof the contents, the delay time relating to the decision of an asset tobe received and the start of the acquisition of the communicationcontents can be reduced.

Further, according to this exemplary embodiment, in the receivingapparatus, the contents management information is analyzed so that atransmission path through which contents are received and data to bereceived through the transmission paths may be decided. For example,when the clock information of data to be transmitted through both thetransmission paths are different from each other, auxiliary informationnecessary for clock synchronization between the data may be acquired sothat DTSs and PTSs of the data are allowed to synchronize, and the datamay be decoded to be reproduced. Further, when data to be transmittedthrough both the transmission paths are synchronously reproduced,auxiliary information necessary for clock synchronization between thedata may be acquired so that DTSs and PTSs of the data may be allowed tosynchronize, and the data may be decoded to be reproduced.

As a result, the receiving apparatus that receives only broadcast datacan reproduce the broadcast data according to the operation similar tothe conventional broadcast reception, and simultaneously can cope withreproduction of communication data.

Further, a system for synchronizing broadcast and communication datawith each other so as to reproduce these data can be provided to thereceiving apparatus.

Further, even when clocks of data to be transmitted through a pluralityof transmission paths do not synchronize with each other, auxiliaryinformation necessary for the clock synchronization is acquired so thatthe clocks synchronize with each other and data can be synchronouslyreproduced.

This exemplary embodiment can realize the contents transmitting method,the receiving method, the transmitting apparatus, and the receivingapparatus for enabling a quick access to contents through communicationwhen the contents are reproduced by using the combination of broadcastand communication on the receiving side.

For example, in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, atransmitting method for transmitting contents using a broadcast wave anda communication path includes an information transmitting step of, whenthe contents are transmitted by using the broadcast wave and thecommunication path, allowing application control information to includeinformation that is for synchronizing the contents through the broadcastwave and the contents through the communication path when the contentsare received by a receiving side and that relates to the contents to betransmitted through the communication path, and transmitting theapplication control information using at least the broadcast wave in thebroadcast wave and the communication path.

As a result, when contents are transmitted by using the broadcast waveand the communication path, the application control information isallowed to include information that is for synchronizing the contentsusing the broadcast wave and the contents using the communication pathwhen the receiving side receives the contents and that relates to thecontents to be transmitted through the communication path, and theapplication control information is transmitted. For this reason, whenthe receiving side receives the application control information, thereceiving side is enabled to quickly access to the contents usingcommunication, and is enabled to synchronize both the contents with eachother.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, prior totransmission of the contents, the application control information istransmitted, and the application control information may further includelocation information indicating an acquisition destination of thecontents or information indicating an acquisition destination of thelocation information.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, theapplication control information may be allowed to include differentialinformation between a reference clock of the contents through thebroadcast wave and a reference clock of the contents through thecommunication path so as to be transmitted.

Further, for example, in the information transmitting step, theapplication control information is transmitted, and the reference clockof the contents through the communication path is made to synchronizewith the reference clock of the contents through the broadcast wavebased on the differential information so that the receiving side maytake the synchronization.

Further, the receiving method from one aspect of this exemplaryembodiment includes a receiving step of receiving contents transmittedby using a broadcast wave and a communication path, and a reproducingstep of, when application control information that is for synchronizingthe contents using the broadcast wave and the contents using thecommunication path and includes information about the contents to betransmitted through the communication path is received from at least thebroadcast wave in the broadcast wave and the communication path,executing the synchronizing process so as to reproduce the contents.

As a result, the application control information to be transmitted onthe transmission path such as the broadcast wave to be the entry pointis acquired, and when the application control information includes theinformation that is for synchronizing the contents through the broadcastwave and the contents through the communication path and that relates tothe contents to be transmitted through the communication path, thesynchronizing process can be performed.

For example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception of thecontents, the application control information is received, and when theapplication control information further includes location informationindicating an acquisition destination of the contents, the contents areacquired based on the location information so that the contents may bereceived.

Further, for example, in the receiving step, prior to the reception ofthe contents, the application control information is received, and whenthe application control information includes information indicating anacquisition destination of location information indicating anacquisition destination of the contents, the location information isacquired based on the information indicating the acquisition destinationof the location information, and the contents are acquired from theacquired location information so that the contents may be received.

Further, for example, in the reproducing step, when the applicationcontrol information that includes differential information between areference clock of the contents through the broadcast wave and areference clock of the contents through communication path is receivedin the receiving step, and the reference clock of the contents throughthe broadcast wave is different from the reference clock of the contentsthrough the communication path, the reference clock of the contentsthrough the communication path is made to synchronize with the referenceclock of the contents through the broadcast wave based on thedifferential information, so that a process for synchronizing thecontents with each other is executed and the contents may be reproduced.

The above describes the transmitting method and the receiving methodaccording to one or a plurality of modes of the present disclosure basedon the exemplary embodiments, but the present disclosure is not limitedto the exemplary embodiments. Various modifications that are made by aperson skilled in the art in this exemplary embodiment and modesstructured by combinations of components in different exemplaryembodiments may be included in the range of one or the plurality ofmodes of the present disclosure without departing from the purpose ofthe present disclosure.

For example, in the above exemplary embodiments, the respectivecomponents may be formed by dedicated hardware or may be realized byexecuting software programs suitable for the components, respectively.The components may be realized in a manner that a program executing unitsuch as a CPU or a processor reads software programs recorded in arecording medium such as a hard disc or a semiconductor memory andexecutes the software programs.

Further, for example, the attribute information may include theinformation that indicates whether the clock information of an audio anda video transmitted through broadcast is identical to the clockinformation of an audio and a video transmitted through communication.

Further, in the synchronization between the reference clocks in S406,the attribute information includes the information that indicateswhether the reference clock information of a plurality of components areidentical to each other. When the receiving side can acquire theinformation indicating that the difference in the reference clockinformation from the attribute information, the reference clocks onbroadcast and communication may be synchronized with each other by usingthe above method.

Further, when the contents are transmitted through the broadcast waveand the communication path, the transmission path identifying descriptoris transmitted, and when the contents are transmitted by using only thebroadcast wave, the transmission path identifying descriptor is nottransmitted. This constitution enables the receiver to determine whetherthe contents are transmitted by the combination with the communicationpath or by using only the broadcast wave based on whether thetransmission path identifying descriptor is included.

Further, the method for synchronizing clock information of streams to betransmitted through different transmission paths such as broadcast andcommunication may be included in the attribute information, but thepresent disclosure is not limited to this. The attribute information mayinclude a method for synchronizing the information indicating whetherthe clock information about the streams to be transmitted throughdifferent transmission paths such as broadcast and communication witheach other or a method for the synchronization.

The present disclosure is useful as the contents transmitting method andreceiving method for enabling contents to be transmitted by using abroadcast wave and a communication path.

1-10. (canceled)
 11. A receiving method comprising: receiving a firstcontrol data and a first media data, the first control data includingfirst time information indicating a presentation start time of the firstmedia data represented in a first timeline, the first control dataincluding first location information and synchronization information,the location information indicating a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) ofa second control data to obtain the second control data, the secondcontrol data including second location information indicating a URL of asecond media data to obtain the second media data; receiving the secondcontrol data and the second media data, the second control dataincluding second time information indicating a presentation start timeof the second media data specified by a second timeline; decoding andrepresenting the first media data based on the first control data; anddecoding and representing the second media data based on the firstcontrol data, the representation of the second media data beingsynchronized with the first media data according to the synchronizationinformation.
 12. A receiving apparatus comprising: a processor; and amemory, wherein the processor, in operation, performs: receiving a firstcontrol data and a first media data, the first control data includingfirst time information indicating a presentation start time of the firstmedia data represented in a first timeline, the first control dataincluding first location information and synchronization information,the location information indicating a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) ofa second control data to obtain the second control data, the secondcontrol data including second location information indicating a URL of asecond media data to obtain the second media data; receiving the secondcontrol data and the second media data, the second control dataincluding second time information indicating a presentation start timeof the second media data specified by a second timeline; decoding andrepresenting the first media data based on the first control data; anddecoding and representing the second media data based on the firstcontrol data, the representation of the second media data beingsynchronized with the first media data according to the synchronizationinformation.